


// MUSIC FOR CARS //

by drinkurkombucha



Category: The 1975 (Band)
Genre: Addiction, Angst, Eventual Smut, Friends to Lovers, George Angst, Growing Up, M/M, all the feelings, drugs and alcohol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:49:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 78,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26304427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkurkombucha/pseuds/drinkurkombucha
Summary: My back was to the door, but I knew it was him.How did I know?My heart immediately began to beat faster and the hair stood up on my arms. Goosebumps spread across my skin.I had never been able to ignore his presence – Matty was always a full-body reaction.******A GD x MH fic.[COMPLETED]
Relationships: George Daniel/Matthew Healy
Comments: 87
Kudos: 48





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N: This is a plot that I literally couldn't get out of my head and had to write. It's completely made up and I don't own any of the members of The 1975. It is pure and utter fiction. It isn't true to any kind of timeline and I'm not English so I have zero idea how the UK school system works, but here you go. And yes, the entire first chapter is a reference to the song Menswear. Enjoy!**

**Prologue**

The café had changed significantly since the last time I’d been here, but there were a few things that were familiar – the tiny stage in the corner, which was really just a small platform. The pictures of local celebrities hanging over the counter. The graffiti in the toilet that read: _Hann is a wanker_ , written so small just behind a pipe that it was impossible to see it unless of course you knew exactly where to look. And I knew exactly where to look because I was the one that had written it.

It had been a long time and I was nervous. My hands had a mind of their own, tapping on the table. I felt out of my depth. Deeply uncomfortable.

We hadn’t seen each other since the… unpleasant-ness that had happened and I had been terrified when he had reached out to me. It had been a very long time. It felt like a lifetime.

At first I didn’t want to come but Hann (who really wasn’t a wanker, to be fair) had convinced me. He had become more spiritually inclined in his old age, speaking about honesty and telling me that I would regret it forever if I didn’t at least hear him out.

So here I was and it was getting harder and harder to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach.

I nervously looked at my phone. 3:08pm. He was already late, as I knew he would be.

Ten more minutes and rising anxiety spurred me out of my chair. I was putting on my jacket to head back out into the grey, cold London afternoon when I heard the bell above the door chime as a new customer came in. My back was to the door, but I knew it was him.

How did I know?

My heart immediately began to beat faster and the hair stood up on my arms. Goosebumps spread across my skin.

I had never been able to ignore his presence – Matty was always a full-body reaction.

I stopped my movements and turned slowly, just as his eyes landed on me.

Our eyes locked across the room and it was like someone had suddenly turned down the volume of the café. All I could hear was my own heartbeat as he stared at me – his face giving nothing away.

I stared back at him like he was Jesus Christ rising out of the grave on the third day.

My heart ached as I looked at him. He was older now, you could see it in his face and around his eyes. A few grey hairs littering the side of his head. Those big, dark eyes still looked exactly the same though.

A flashback of a house party from years ago slammed itself into my brain so violently the spell was broken and the noise of the café came roaring back to life as I broke the stare. I turned my back and sat back down at the table by the window without a word. My legs were shaking. I knew he would follow and sure enough a few seconds later he slipped into the seat across from me.

We sat in silence. My fingers nervously picking back up their rhythm of tapping on the surface of the table. He was chewing on his lower lip.

Something without words was moving in the air between us.

I wondered if he remembered me as often as I remembered him. I remembered him violently – his face jarring into my memory, unavoidable and forcing everything else from my mind. Did he remember me the same way? Or did he remember me in a more abstract way, like the brief recognition that you forgot to take the washing in when it’s raining outside?

A waitress came and asked us if we were okay. I nodded at her, even though I completely and totally was not okay in any sense of the word.

He ordered two black coffees and then, as if to break the ice, said:

“We’re going to need more sugar love. This one takes three in his.”

He winked at the waitress and she smiled at him before she left.

I wanted to punch him in the face.

He turned back to me, getting alarmed when he saw that I was angry.

He opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off before he had the chance:

“You wanted to talk Matty, so fucking talk.”

_And this is where we start over._

******


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

I pulled at the collar of my shirt. I seriously didn’t want to be here and it was obvious. I couldn’t stop fidgeting. I just felt so fucking awkward. I barely knew the couple and I couldn’t understand why my mother insisted that I come with her.

It was the end of August and I was too hot in the suit that I had been told I had to wear. We hadn’t been back in the UK long and I was honestly more concerned about mentally preparing myself for starting at another new school (my fourth in the past three years), than celebrating the wedding of my mum’s best friend.

“Georgie, stop fussing,” she hissed at me.

The reception was well underway and I was sitting at a table with a load of adults I had never met before. It was dull. I thought about how lucky my dad was that he was able to escape this hell. He travelled so much, he was barely here. Even my sisters had managed to escape. They were older than me and they had each mumbled excuses about college and boyfriends and getaways with their friends.

My mother was lonely, I understood that, but that’s not an excuse to make your teenager fill the gap at a wedding your spouse or your other children can’t be fucked to attend with you.

I slumped in my seat and she gave me a large dose of side eye as I let out a sigh.

“Why don’t you go and see if you can find some of the younger guests?” she asked.

“Laura’s new husband Jeff, his son Noah is the best man. He’s the same age as you and should be knocking around somewhere. He said he’d help you get settled into school when you start next week. Now might be a good time to introduce yourself?”

“Sure mum, that’s a great idea,” I agreed and she smiled.

I got up from the table and returned her smile as I left the banqueting hall. There was no way in hell I was going to hunt down a stranger at a wedding. Instead I was going to find someplace quiet outside where I could smoke the fat spliff that I was hiding in the pocket of my suit.

I let out a breath I didn’t realise I had been holding as I pushed open the hotel’s main door and went outside. The sun was shining and I blinked as my eyes adjusted. It was so mood lit in the reception that it felt like night time. The weather was gorgeous, which was unusual for the UK at this time of year.

Chances are we’d get the annual heat wave next week. It always seemed to start as soon as school was back, because as if sitting in a classroom learning pointless shit wasn’t punishment enough – it also had to be 35 degrees outside.

Year 11. I couldn’t believe I was starting Year 11. It made my skin crawl. I felt awkward enough about myself already without having to start over with yet another new bunch of kids.

I sighed and fumbled in my pocket, finding my MP3 player. I popped in my headphones and hit play. I had gotten really into Garage Band in the past few months and had spent hours creating tunes. The soothing slam of various carefully-arranged beats, a George Daniel original, filled my head.

I looked around. It was way too exposed out the front of the hotel, there was no way I could light up a spliff so I did what any teenager instinctively knows to do – I went round the back and managed to find a huge tree I could comfortably sit against where I wouldn’t be noticed. I sat down, leaning back against the bark, lit up and took a drag. The world gradually started to get softer around the edges. Heaven.

It wasn’t long before my peace was interrupted by voices coming out the back of the hotel.

“I’ve only got three – what are you looking at me for Ross?”

“You’re the best man, you’re supposed to have a plan for this.”

My ears pricked up at that. I took out one of my earphones and looked over. The best man was a tall, blonde kid. I assumed that was Noah. The one called Ross was also tall with dark hair and a really patchy beard. There was another kid with them too – he was scrawny and quiet.

They hadn’t noticed me yet. I watched them, my soul soothed by the weed, as they lit up a cigarette and started sharing it between the three of them.

“Go and talk to Matty about it. I only bought three – you’re gonna have to ask around,” Noah said.

“Well where is he then?” asked Ross.

“Last time I saw him, he was spilling stolen Amaretto down the front of some bird’s dress,” the scrawny one responded, a smirk forming on his features.

“My new mother is going to fucking freak and kick him out if he doesn’t calm down soon,” Noah said.

“You’d better hope she doesn’t follow him into the bathroom. There’s coke literally all over the sink,” said Ross.

“Fuck my life,” sighed Noah, running a hand down his face.

“Can you talk to him Adam? Get him to calm down?” Noah asked the scrawny one.

“Don’t look at me mate. He’d just laugh at me. He never listens to me,” said Adam.

“So are we doing this then boys?” Ross asked, blatantly ignoring the current problem and changing the subject.

“Ecstasy at a wedding, how cliché,” said Adam and they laughed before they each took a pill and popped it into their mouths.

They went back inside, terrible cheesy music wafting outside on the air as they opened the door to the hotel.

******

Sitting through the rest of the reception wasn’t that hard when I was stoned. I arrived back inside just as they were bringing out more food. Impeccable timing.

I was just about to grab a handful of cocktail sausages when the ringing of a fork against a glass began in the far corner of the room. It was quickly picked up by people at various tables and gradually the conversation started to die down.

“That’s unusual, we already had the speeches,” my mother said, turning in her seat.

I stood up so I could see better.

“I’d like to say a few words if you don’t mind,” the speaker was my age and was, very clearly, absolutely hammered.

His dark hair was all over the place, he had his tie wrapped around his head Rambo-style and the pocket of his shirt had been ripped off.

He jolted a glass of champagne up in the air in a classic ‘wedding toast’ motion and then started laughing as it sloshed down his sleeve.

“Sit down,” Adam hissed loudly, and I realised both Adam and Ross were sitting with him at his table, along with a few older guests.

“No, no, no. I’ve got somethin’ to say. Everybody, everybody, hey, look. S’been a lovely day, yeah?” He opened his arms and nodded at the crowed.

“Yeah, all lovely innit? Laura, you look stunning. You’d definitely get it and all. MILF material,” he winked in the direction of the bride, who looked horrified.

“But I’ve got something I want to say,” he held up his hand to his mouth and let out a ‘Ssh!’noise.

I glanced at the top table where Noah had his head in his hands and his Dad, the groom, was cursing and getting to his feet, as if he was planning on quickly putting a stop to whatever was in the process of happening.

“I’d like to say that Ross, mate? I never, ever, EVER fucking got on with your bird the first time I met her,” the speaker started laughing.

“In fact mate, I still don’t. She’s such a bitch!”

Ross was shaking his head and telling him to shut up but he was on a roll.

“She’s like a fucking dementor mate – she literally sucks the joy out of every room that she enters. You could do SO much better,” He slurred, more champagne spilling with every gesture he made.

“You need to shut the fuck up, right now,” Ross snapped, a tone of warning evident in his voice, but the speaker was either too drunk to pay attention to it or really just didn’t give a shit.

“AND to top it all off, the night of your birthday? She tried to shag me mate. Can you believe that? She was going round, trying her luck with everyone. Said you had been shagging around on her, but I knew you hadn’t. She cornered me and showed me her tits in the kitchen. But I said no and – ”

His speech was cut short when Ross suddenly lunged out of his chair and punched him right in the face. People immediately sprang to their feet to watch. My mother said something that sounded very like a swear-word under her breath.

Ross could easily demolish him, but despite being as scrawny as Adam and hammered, he was scrappy. He lunged towards Ross with his limbs flying everywhere. Someone screamed as they slammed into a nearby table and knocked drinks all over everyone.

The commotion was short-lived. A bunch of wedding guests managed to get them off each other and cart them outside.

“Say what you will about Denise, but she seriously needs to get that boy under control,” one of the women to my left said.

“He’s just having a hard time. You know about her and Tim, right?” My mother dropped her voice slightly, as the other woman leaned across the table. They started gossiping about divorces and celebrities and the impact that not having a ‘stable’ home can have on a kid, my mother conveniently ignoring the fact that our own home was far from stable. I wanted to say: ‘Hello? Four schools in three years’ but I stayed quiet.

I sat back down, my hand-eye coordination completely fucked from the weed and accidentally knocked a glass of wine directly onto my pants.

“Fuck,” I sighed

“Georgie!” My mother scolded me for my bad language and then immediately started fussing.

“Mum, it’s okay, I’m fine,” I batted her hands away and grabbed some napkins off the table before going in search of a bathroom.

I finally found the men’s and had my hand on the door when it suddenly flung open and someone walked into me with such force we both landed on the floor.

“Fucking hell!” I yelped.

“For fuck’s sake!” he yelled. I scrambled to my feet and glared at him.

“What’s your problem mate?” he snapped at me.

I looked at him. It was the guy who had been fighting with Ross. He was dishevelled and a bit out of it. He had the start of a shiner forming on his left eye. My eyes noticed a tattoo on his right forearm. I was pretty sure it was the symbol for the game _Mortal Kombat_. This was clearly a person who made bad life choices.

“My problem? What the fuck is your problem?” I fired back at him, suddenly defensive.

He got to his feet, told me to fuck myself and stormed off.

I gritted my teeth as I went into the bathroom. I had a feeling I was going to hate living here.

******


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you so much for the views, comments and kudos! I am SO EXCITED about this fic. I literally haven't been able to stop writing since I started working on it. This chapter contains spliff smoking, partying and Matty being a bit of a dick. Enjoy!

**Chapter 2**

The music throbbed in my ears. It was loud, probably too loud, but I honestly didn’t care. I took one last look around me before I grabbed the spliff out of my bag and lit up. I was hiding behind a bike shed, far enough away from the main school that no one would notice me but close enough that I could still hear the bell if I needed to. I inhaled deeply, a smile crossing my face as the weed hit my lungs. It had been a long morning and I _needed_ this. I sighed out the smoke and leaned back against the wall of the bike shed, closing my eyes and just allowing the beat of the music to wash away all the bullshit that was happening in my head. I was stressed out.

The morning had been a blur of new teachers, new classmates, exam dates and book lists. It was lunch now and so far I was hating my new school. Like, actually hating it. The people in my year were just… not my kind of people. There was a distinct preppy and sporty vibe happening at this school and I had already decided that I just wasn’t going to get on with any of them. In fact, I had decided that pretty much instantly when one dickhead had cracked a joke about my height during that awful ‘new student introduction’ the teacher had put me through and everyone else in the class had laughed. It wasn’t that I felt weird about being a tall kid per se, it was the fact that people just kept fucking commenting on it all the time. It made me feel like I should be self-conscious about it.

I took another hit of weed, not even bothering to open my eyes. The music flowed over me and for one perfect moment, I experienced that beautiful empty-headed feeling that sometimes accompanied slowly getting stoned while listening to an epic tune.

I tuned in to each note as it played in my ears. First there was a juxtaposition of soft piano layered over a slamming bass line, getting louder and louder with every beat – a crescendo starting to build on itself. And then the glorious moment would come – wait for it – when the crescendo would peak and the base would drop. It was perfect. I held my breath, enjoying the build-up and getting ready to move as soon as the heart-grabbing drop hit. Here it comes and –

My eyes snapped open and I coughed on the smoke I had been subconsciously holding in my lungs as the music disappeared out of my right ear.

“Well now, THIS is interesting,” Noah was standing in front of me, my ear bud in his hand and grinning at me. Two others were with him and I recognised them instantly – it was Ross and Adam from the wedding.

“You know, when I told my mum I’d keep an eye out for you, I wasn’t expecting to bust you smoking a spliff on school property,” said Noah, almost sounding impressed.

I looked down at the spliff still burning away in my hand and brought it to my lips, taking another drag before I offered it to Noah who immediately took it.

“You know you don’t have to babysit me. I get that you’re a Year 12 who probably doesn’t have time to look after the new kid,” I said, shifting awkwardly. I was very aware of the fact that Ross and Adam were staring at me.

“Fucking hell, that’s good weed,” said Noah, coughing slightly as he took a drag and exhaled.

“Hey, sharing is caring,” Ross piped up.

Noah was about to hand the spliff back to me but then paused and looked at me with a silent question. I nodded and Ross grinned as he took the spliff from his friend.

“So aren’t you going to introduce us to your mystery drug-providing friend?” Adam spoke then, looking at Noah and nodding in my direction.

“Oh yes, sorry. Guys this is George. He’s new,” Noah moved beside me and slapped me on the shoulder.

“His mum is friends with my mum.”

“Hey George,” Adam responded, laughing as Ross started to cough post-weed.

“Holy shit this IS good,” Ross said, voice hoarse. He passed the joint to Adam and then added a “Hi mate, where you from?”

“Long story,” I said and Noah laughed.

“Georgie here is a bit of a nomad. This is your what… fourth school or something?”

I nodded.

We continued to smoke together for the rest of lunch, me learning little bits of information about each of them as the time went on. They were obsessed with video games. They loved music. Ross and Adam were in a band together. Ross had a girlfriend, although judging from the look on Adam’s face when he spoke about her, she wasn’t exactly liked. I remembered that from the wedding, which I didn’t bother to bring up because they definitely didn’t see me that day. Noah was doing his best to book them a couple of gigs for their band, but it was proving difficult. He didn’t say why but I was pretty sure I heard a name being muttered under Ross’s breath. It sounded like, _“Fucking Healy…”_

We all collectively groaned as we heard the bell ringing in the distance. The others watched me as I grabbed a can of Lynx body spray out of my backpack.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Ross eyed me as I started spraying myself.

“Are you serious? It’s to get rid of the smell of weed,” I said.

A look of realisation dawned on each of them slowly.

“You know George, with your excellent weed and your smarts, I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship,” said Ross as I tossed the can in his direction.

“You know my dad and Laura are going away on their honeymoon on Friday, so I’ll have a free house for two whole weeks. I’m planning a party on Saturday night – you should come,” said Noah as we started heading back to the main school building. We were absolutely reeking of Lynx Apollo. But then again, we were a group of teenage lads, so chances are no one would question us on it.

“Yes George, you should definitely come,” Ross clapped me on the back. “Give you a chance to meet everyone.”

The thoughts of a party made me feel deeply uncomfortable but before I had a chance to say no, Noah was saying: “I’ve sent you an event invite through MySpace. Accept it immediately or I’ll be devastated.”

We parted ways and I headed towards my next class.

******

School was finally over and I swear the air hit me differently when I walked out of the school’s main double doors that evening. The air was heavy and warm. It made me feel sluggish. I was absolutely _gagging_ for another spliff. My brain felt heavy with all the information I had taken in during the day and I honestly just wanted to empty it all out.

I could feel a headache starting behind my left eye and my shoulders were tense. I carried all my stress in my shoulders and it was part of the reason why I had taken to the drums so much. Physically beating drums was the fastest way for me to relax. The downside was that it didn’t necessarily do wonders for my posture, something my mother was always scolding me for. It was also absolutely wrecking my wrists and hands but I loved it so much, I knew there was no way in hell I could ever give it up.

My feet were leading me in the direction of the bike shed before I was even fully aware that’s where I was heading. I guess I had officially found my personal smoking spot for the next year of my life, or for however long my family decided to stay in our current location.

I leaned back against the wall from earlier and lit up. Earphones in. Music blaring (another one of my own compositions I was working on). The delicious feeling of all the information from the day just sliding out of my brain.

After about 15 minutes, my peace was suddenly interrupted by a loud voice. I took out one of my ear buds and watched as a guy stormed into my space. He was on his phone and very clearly pissed off at whoever he was talking to. I watched him as he paced around, his back to me, completely oblivious to the fact that I was standing there.

“I do have my priorities straight Tony, so forgive me for not wanting to spend my weekend scrubbing sick off the bathroom floor in your absolute fucking HOLE of a pub. You know what, I don’t actually need this bullshit. Do you want me to quit? Because I swear I will fucking quit right now,” he was snapping down the phone.

I frowned as he yelled “FUCK!” and finished his conversation by slamming his phone into the ground and then kicked over a nearby bin. The sound of the metal hitting the cement immediately caused my sense of peace to collapse.

He bent over to pick up his flip phone, cursing again loudly when he realised he had cracked the screen and I caught a glimpse of his profile. It took me a second to realise that I already knew this kid. It was the dickhead from the wedding – the remains of the black eye gave it away.

Half-stoned as I was, I couldn’t stop the “Fucking hell mate,” that fell from my lips, but I immediately regretted it when his head snapped towards me and his eyes flashed when he realised I was standing there.

“Hey mate, how about you fuck off before I kick the shit out of you?” he snapped.

I laughed before I could stop myself.

“Mate, I’m six foot. You might want to reconsider that threat,” I said, taking another drag of my spliff.

He had been so out of it at the wedding it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t recognise me. I watched as he looked me up and down, clearly assessing if he could actually fulfil his threat of kicking the shit out of me. I wasn’t a fighter and I knew he could be scrappy (I had seen him take down Ross after all) but I was confident I could break his nose if I needed to. I was a lot stronger than I looked.

He glanced over his shoulder then, as if making sure no teachers were around, and then he let out a half-laugh and walked directly towards me. He pushed himself into my personal space and got right up in my face, trying to intimidate me.

I could feel the heat of annoyance sparking in my chest and then he did something which made me fucking livid. He grabbed the joint out of my mouth, put it between his lips and took a slow hit, dark eyes studying mine intensely, as if he was daring me to react.

I just watched him, refusing to break eye contact.

He smirked and then blew his smoke into my face.

“You want to fuck off now love?” He asked.

His eyes dropped and he noticed the MP3 player that was sticking out of my pocket and, before I could stop him, he reached forward and grabbed it.

“Give it back,” I said, allowing my anger to really show now.

“What shit are you even listening to?” He put an ear bud into his ear and then he started to laugh.

He was laughing at my music. My face flushed red with a mixture of anger and embarrassment.

He fell silent as I reached forward and grabbed the MP3 player off him, pretty much ripping the ear bud from his ear.

“Keep the spliff and go fuck yourself mate,” I snapped over my shoulder as I pushed past him.

I could hear him laughing at me as I stormed off.

******

The house was imposing. It was big. Much bigger than I had expected and definitely much bigger than what I was used to. I knew that Noah’s family was well-off, but this was huge. It was Saturday night and I was standing outside. The place was buzzing already – a group of hammered underage secondary school students already laughing and smoking in the front garden. It was a good thing Noah didn’t have any neighbours.

I contemplated all the stories that were going to spiral out from this night. Some people would have the best night of their lives. Others would have a night they just wanted to forget. Me? So far I was having an awkward night. I wasn’t one for parties and a part of me felt like the only reason I was here was due to a pity invite on Noah’s behalf. Well, to be honest, he probably just wanted more of my weed.

I had ended up getting into the daily routine of getting stoned with Noah, Ross and Adam at lunch. Were we friends now? I didn’t really know, but I was starting to enjoy their banter even if they never showed up with weed of their own. They were all in the year above me, but they were more my vibe – into music and movies instead of pointless shit like trying out for the rugby team and desperately trying to get into Oxford once school was over because that’s where ‘Mummy and daddy went’.

Tonight though I had thought about not coming. I had even gone so far as to tell my mother that I was invited to a party and weirdly she had actually encouraged me. She said it was better than me sitting alone in my room on a Saturday night, making those ‘strange songs’ on my computer and now that I was 17, I needed to be out having experiences like other ‘normal’ teenagers. My older sister had said something similar, adding that a lot of my problems and awkwardness could be solved by getting absolutely rat-arsed drunk with people my own age in a virtual stranger’s house. This was why I had bought a shoulder of vodka on my way here and had already downed half. One of the best things about being tall for my age was the fact that I rarely got asked for ID. I already looked like I was 20.

I took another mouthful of vodka to calm my nerves and was in the process of working up the courage to just walk up to the front door when I heard someone shout my name.

“You gonna go in or just stare?”

It was Ross.

“Alright?” I asked, feeling my face break out into a grin. I was glad to see him. At least now I wouldn’t have to walk in alone.

“Pre-drinks, fuck yes!”

Another voice. Adam this time.

He came towards me and slung his arm over my shoulder. I handed him the bottle of vodka and his eyes lit up. He was already a bit pissed – I could smell the alcohol off his breath as he leaned in and said: “Don’t worry G, we’ll mind you.”

He took a swig, coughing as the spirit burned his throat and we all laughed.

“Right mates, let’s see what trouble we can get into tonight!” Ross winked at us and we started walking towards the house.

It was huge inside and I stopped for a second to really take it all in. Music was slamming. There were bodies everywhere. It looked like one of those American teenage house parties you see in films. It felt weird to me that we were actually still in Wilmslow.

“Holy shit, LOOK at this place!” I said and Adam grinned at me.

“Wait until you see the swimming pool,” he said.

“Fuck off,” I said in disbelief, shoving his shoulder while he laughed.

“HELLO LADIES!” A voice boomed from the stairs. It was Noah and he was holding a bottle of champagne and absolutely thrashed. He was dressed in his boxers and a dressing gown.

“Here, your bird is out back,” He said to Ross as he came towards me and slung an arm around my neck.

“Glad you could make it Georgie. Do you want a drink?”

I nodded and allowed myself to be led into the kitchen, which was so overcrowded it was literally pulsating with bodies. I felt overwhelmed. A thick cloud of weed hung over everything.

A girl pushed past me. Her eyes caught mine and my head turned, following her as she moved around me. She gave me a wink. My face immediately blushed. I felt drunk and a bit giddy. I was suddenly glad I had come.

I allowed Noah to lead me to the island at the centre of the large kitchen which was littered with booze. He passed me a plastic party cup filled to the brim with straight vodka.

“Any chance of a mixer?” I asked and he started laughing.

“Liquor is quicker,” he winked.

Someone reached down from behind me and grabbed the cup.

“Whatever you do, do NOT listen to this man,” said Adam. He disappeared with my cup and returned a few minutes later. He had put a mixer in for me.

“One thing to know about Hann,” said Noah. “When he gets drunk he acts like a responsible adult.”

“It’s both a gift and a curse,” said Adam, shrugging his shoulders, a look of resignation on his face.

We stayed there chatting about nothing and gradually getting drunker and drunker. There were some girls sitting up on the island to my left and I overheard their conversation as they got drunker too and thus, louder.

“He’s so fucking sexual,” one of them said, voice thick and slurred. “Have you seen his pictures on MySpace? He’s definitely gotten hotter and I hate myself for thinking that because he’s such a fucking weirdo.”

“My problem is that I literally want to sit on Matty’s face,” her friend responded and I choked into my cup.

“You might have some competition in that respects love,” said Noah, also hearing the exchange. He gestured across the kitchen to a couple that were literally humping each other against the wall near the fridge. The guy had his back to us but a sinking feeling started in my stomach as I realised who it was.

I watched as he broke away from the girl, whispered something to her and then disappeared with her. I caught a flash of the _Mortal Kombat_ tattoo as he raised his arm up to lead her through the crowded kitchen.

“Has he been here long?” Adam asked, shifting beside me to look at the couple.

“He arrived before the party started already quite fucked up. He got fired,” Noah said.

I didn’t protest as he grabbed a bottle of vodka from the counter and liberally topped up each of our drinks.

“Not again,” Adam groaned pulling his hand down his face. “Where are we supposed to get steady gigs now?”

“You know, it’s not exactly easy being your manager,” Noah said. He took a long drink. “Matty has pissed off so many pub and club owners in the area that I am struggling. Might be time for a new band member?”

“We can’t just dump him. He’s our mate. I couldn’t betray him like that and you more than anyone know that he’s going through a tough time right now,” said Adam, running a hand through his hair.

I stayed silent, a bit uncomfortable that the conversation was starting to get serious. As their discussions about Matty intensified, I mumbled an excuse about needing the loo and escaped.

I was still smarting over him stealing my spliff and invading my personal space. The more I focused on this, the more I remembered what a fucking dickhead he had been at the wedding too. I decided there and then that I was probably not going to get on with Matty either. But if he was friends with Noah, Ross and Adam then I was sort of stuck with him wasn’t I? He needn’t fucking think he was getting any of my good weed again.

The bathroom on the ground floor was locked and there were clearly people going at it inside. Now desperate for a piss, I found myself taking the stairs two at a time. I hadn’t realised how drunk I actually was until I had started moving. My brain felt like it was sloshing around my skull in a deliciously pleasant way.

I managed to find a bathroom, but on my return to the kitchen I had gotten a bit lost and was now sprawled across a large armchair taking a much-needed break from pushing past the mass amounts of people in the house. It was like being in a nightclub. People were standing around, paying zero attention to me and talking amongst themselves.

My hands were tapping out a steady rhythm on the arm of the chair, a nervous habit that made an appearance any time I was anxious or stressed.

Eventually the room started to empty slightly and I gradually felt the distinct sensation that someone was watching me. I slowly looked up and our eyes locked.

He was sitting on a sofa at the far end of the room just staring at me. His eyes flickered to my still-tapping hand and then back to my eyes, no expression on his face. The girl from the kitchen was draped over his left side and, not breaking eye contact with me, he allowed her to pull him in for a kiss.

His eyes were magnetic and I didn’t know if it was the alcohol, the spliff I had smoked a little while ago with Adam or the sheer weirdness of the situation, but I couldn’t break his gaze. I suddenly felt this intense need to assert my dominance here. To show him that he wasn’t going to fuck with me.

His eyes lit up with something I couldn’t read, but I caught the slight smirk on his lips as the girl pulled away and then, still staring at me, he turned to his right. The crowd between us thinned more now and my stomach did a weird nervous lurch as he broke the stare and pulled someone else into a kiss that was much more obscene than the one he had shared with the girl.

It took me a second to realise it was a guy.

I forced myself to pull my eyes away from what I was seeing and quickly got to my feet and went back into the kitchen, flustered, where the others were.

“You alright G?” Adam asked as I walked by him and took a swig out of the nearest bottle I could find, the whiskey making my eyes water as I downed it.

“Oh he’s fine,” slurred Noah, coming into the room directly behind me.

“He just met Matty.”

Yeah. I had just met Matty.

******


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you, thank you for your comments, views and kudos. I really appreciate them. I am having altogether WAY too much fun with this. Enjoy!

**Chapter 3**

It was Monday morning and I was sitting in a classroom, earphones in and forehead resting against my arms on the desk. I had stayed up until 2am working on this latest tune and I was savoring the fruits of my efforts while I waited for the teacher to arrive and class to start. The hum of the classroom was slightly audible above my music as students started filtering into the room laughing and chatting about the weekend’s festivities. It seems like the entire school was at Noah’s on Saturday night.

I had spent all day yesterday hungover out of my mind – a consequence of mixing so many fucking drinks and just feeling really fucking weird about what had happened at the party. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see Matty’s smirk as he looked away from me and licked at a stranger’s mouth. It made me irrationally angry and agitated.

And then, suddenly, the noise of my surroundings got a lot louder as someone pulled the ear bud out of my ear. Why did people _keep_ doing this to me at this fucking school?

Annoyed I sat up, getting ready to tell someone to fuck themselves, but my words got stuck in my mouth when I saw Matty sitting at the desk beside me, holding the ear bud in his hand.

“Seen you at the party on Saturday night,” he said casually, and I looked at him, my confusion clear on my face. Why was he here? This was the kid who had told me to go fuck myself and had threatened to kick the shit out of me just last week. There was also that very weird power struggle that had happened between us on Saturday night. If that was the right word to describe what had happened. I didn’t fucking know. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The bell rang.

He rolled his eyes as if he was already losing his patience with me.

“Look, come to my house after school yeah?” he said, right as the teacher walked into the classroom and let out a pained sigh followed by the words: “I thought I got rid of you last year – out of my classroom Mr. Healy.”

Matty ignored him and handed the ear bud back to me.

I took it, still confused.

“Matty? **Get. Out.** ”

The teacher’s voice boomed in the room and Matty rolled his eyes again.

“Yes my overlord!”

I watched Matty as he stood up and did a dramatic bow, making everyone in the classroom laugh before he left without a backwards glance.

I finally found my words but it was too late.

I mumbled a: _“I don’t even know where you fucking live,”_ under my breath as I put my earphones away and grabbed my books out of my bag.

******

“Do you guys know where Matty lives?” I asked tentatively, immediately feeling awkward and self-conscious when Ross, Noah and Adam stopped chatting and looked at me.

We were behind the bike shed having our daily smoke.

“What has he done?” Adam sighed like a disappointed parent.

“Nothing,” I shook my head and then said: “It worries me that’s the first thing you ask.”

“We have to ask because usually when someone wants to know where he is or where he lives, it’s because he’s been a twat in some way,” said Ross by way of explanation.

Matty a twat? Yeah, I could see that. Flashback to the wedding and flashback to Noah’s party. Grade A twat.

“He just arrived in one of my classes this morning and told me to go to his house after school,” I shrugged.

“Well we’re all headed there for band practice. I’m driving so you can come with us,” Adam said.

“You have to tell us if he’s being a dick to you mate. Sometimes he can get a little out of order. We’re all used to him,” said Noah.

“Aren’t we just?” muttered Ross.

We finished our daily spliff and spent the rest of our lunch break laughing and joking, but I felt a bit anxious about heading to Matty’s after school. It was odd that he just asked me out of the blue, especially given that all our encounters thus far had been so fucking weird.

“Hey G, don’t think too hard, you look like you’re going to give yourself an aneurysm,” said Noah, throwing a football at my head and snapping me out of my thoughts.

******

“What do mean you’re not coming mate?”

Adam put his hand up to his phone for a split second before he yelled: “Will you lot shut the fuck up, seriously?!” at us and then went back to his conversation.

If I thought Noah’s house was huge, Matty’s house was even bigger. We were sitting in a basement that really wasn’t a basement. It looked more like a proper music room, complete with sound proofing on the walls. A beautiful drum kit was tucked away in a corner and I had to stop myself from immediately sitting down and playing. My fingers were _itching_ to touch it.

Noah had let us all in, something I felt weird about because I grew up in a family where you always asked permission before you just barged into someone’s house.

So far we hadn’t seen Matty yet, but weirdly enough, I recognised his mother from the family pictures that lined the stairs down to the basement. Ross had seen me looking and said: “Yes, she was in _Corrie_ ,” confirming my suspicions. I knew that my mother knew his family, having grown up in the area but I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t have divulged this piece of essential information. Matty’s Mum was famous. Like _proper_ famous.

That still didn’t excuse the fact that he was a dickhead though.

“We are completely and unequivocally fucked,” Adam said as he finished his phone call and slumped onto the sofa where we were all sitting.

“That was David. He’s quit the band,” he said and I watched as both Ross and Noah reacted.

“Did he say why?” Noah asked, a worried look on his face and Adam rolled his eyes before responding: “Something about needing to take his studies more seriously.”

“Fuck his studies! What the fuck are we supposed to do?” Ross pinched the top of his nose like he was in pain and exhaled deeply.

I looked up as I heard someone coming down the stairs. Matty appeared and Adam immediately attacked him with the information he had just learned:

“Dave has quit the band,” he rushed and Matty smirked.

“I know,” he said simply.

My eyes followed him as he sauntered across to the beautiful drum kit and picked up a pair of drumsticks.

“You knew?” Noah asked, confused.

Matty walked over to our little group and sprawled himself across the chair opposite us. He instantly looked so comfortable and I got the distinct impression that Matty’s confidence was so high you could literally throw him into oncoming traffic and he’d find a way to make himself comfortable there too.

“He rang me and told me he was quitting. Something to do with his school or something?” Matty said distractedly and I shifted uncomfortably as I realized he was staring at me again.

I could literally feel the weight of his eyes on me. My hands had been anxiously tapping on the coffee table in front of me ever since I had arrived.

“So what the fuck are we supposed to do Matty? We can’t be a band without a lead singer,” Adam said, an edge of hysteria to his voice

“Hey George, think fast,” Matty said and I reacted without thinking.

“I have got this completely and totally under control,” he smirked as Noah, Ross and Adam all turned to look at me.

I looked down at the drumsticks in my hand.

_And this is how it starts…_

******


	5. Intermission 1

**Intermission 1**

_Go down  
Soft sound_

Your head is spinning. You’ve had too much to drink and as the night air hits your face, it makes you feel even drunker. You both have no idea how you’re going to get home.

Hush of the city laid out below you. Still alive, despite the late hour.

Headlights twinkling miles away, chasing across the horizon.

_Midnight  
Car lights_

You initially went on a drive to escape the unpleasantness at his house, but you’ve been parked on the outskirts of town for three hours now and somewhere along the way, a bottle of vodka was pulled out from under the front seat.

Van windows down. Summer breeze. Heavy. Thick.

And you’re not sure when the atmosphere changes, but it does. Maybe it’s when he’s crying about how his family is falling apart. Maybe it’s when you say nothing, but reach across to him and give him a hug, holding him tightly because you’ve grown so close. You’re closer to him than anyone else and he knows it.

He knows it.

But something shifts between you and it’s so tangible you can feel it.

_Playing with the air  
Breathing in your hair_

He leans in and everything goes quiet bar the sound of your heart.

Before you know what’s happening, his lips are on yours and the kiss is surprisingly soft and delicate. Not at all what you would expect. Much like him. He’s never been what you expect him to be and that’s why you think he’s so amazing.

You’ve become firm friends, bonded through the way that you’re magically able to interpret each other’s brains. He says all the time that you must have been primeval man in the Platonic sense, one single soul split into two bodies, because he’s intellectual like that and reads everything he can get his hands on – another thing about him that wasn’t how you expected it to be.

He pulls back and when you look at him, your heart betrays you, twisting in a way that you’ve never felt before and you don’t know if it’s because you’re drunk or stoned or something else, but your body feels like it’s been set alight and you feel the burn of something deeper licking over your skin.

Your eyes meet his and the permission is exchanged in that look and things progress naturally from that point.

Mouth on mouth as he pulls you into the back of the van. The angles of his hips against the palm of your hands and you cling to him because you’re afraid that if you let go, you’ll lose him.

You’re terrified.

Heart beating.

Brush of clothes as they’re removed.

The kiss of the night air as it embraces your skin, adding to the heat that’s already coming from you both in waves.

Hot breath against the bare skin of his chest as you move down, down…

Down.

_Step into your skin?  
I’d rather jump in your bones_

He takes up every single one of your senses and you break contact for a second just to look at him, to really see him. And in that particular moment you understand that we all learn to see light in different ways and the way the shadows move across his face as he looks at you…

You catch a glimpse of just how beautiful he actually is and by god, it takes your breath away.

It takes your breath away.

And somewhere in the core of your being, you feel something give and even though you’re not consciously aware of it in that moment you know that on this night (and in this light) things will never, ever be the same.

_Taking up your mouth  
So you breathe through your nose_

His hands are in your hair and you feel like you’re seeing heaven as you move your mouth against him, slowly then faster and faster. He makes noises that cause stars to explode in your brain.

Everything inside you short-circuits in the most delicious way.

The ending comes sooner than you want it to and when it’s over and you’re still on your knees, as if you’ve been praying in front of him, he gets up and you never speak about it again.

You never speak about it again.

******


	6. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter features cute drunken Matty and some serious George angst. Thank you for all your views and comments and kudos - they really inspire me to keep going and I'm so excited to share the rest of this fic with you. I wish you could see the entire plot I have in my head! Enjoy...

**Chapter 4**

“I love you G.”

I cursed as I stumbled in the dark.

“Like, I _love you_ , so much.”

“I know mate.”

Matty was hammered. I cursed again as I dropped my keys. This was the third time this week that I had pretty much carried Matty home from the pub.

“George?”

“Yes mate?” I sighed, only half paying attention to him. I was kicking around at the ground hoping that my foot would hit my keys. I really needed to get the porch lamp replaced. It was so dark out here it was impossible to see what you were doing.

“I’m gonna yosh.”

I managed to hold Matty over the hedge to our right as he puked. Our neighbours were going to hate us tomorrow. Our neighbours already hated us to be fair. They would probably open a bottle of champagne when we finally left on tour next week.

Next week. I couldn’t believe it.

Matty groaned pathetically and I left him leaning against the hedge while I found my keys and opened the front door quietly, being mindful that Hannah was asleep upstairs.

“G you’re the love of my life,” Matty was babbling, waxing lyrical about how he would both die without me but also die _for_ me as I carried him upstairs to his bedroom.

“I know mate,” I sighed again.

After a bit of coaxing and speaking to him like he was a very small child, I managed to wrangle him into his bed. He was going to be a fucking nightmare tomorrow when he was hungover.

I turned off the big light, leaving the lamp on his bedside table on, and was just about to leave him to sleep it off when he reached out and tugged on my hand. I stiffened.

“Please G?”

I didn’t move but he kept tugging at my hand and with each tug I felt my resolve sliding away.

“Five minutes,” I said looking down at him and eventually giving in like I always did. He gave me a grin that was signature Matty as I kicked off my shoes and got into bed beside him. Immediately he cuddled in closer to me and I wrapped my arms around him. He made a small happy sound somewhere against my chest in the dim light of the bedroom.

Matty struggled. He struggled a lot. He had trouble sleeping. He would spend hours at night staring at the ceiling, having bizarre, whirling thoughts about what a shit person he was (all untrue). He had been living with a potent mix of both depression and anxiety ever since he was a child. It had, unfortunately, gotten worse the older he grew and he always said that the one thing that helped him most was when I’d hug him. He said my hugs calmed those overwhelming thoughts and helped to keep the “darkness” (as he described it) in check.

The first time I had ever done this for him had been at a house party when we were teenagers. I hadn’t seen him all evening and then he arrived in the kitchen like a ghost at 3am, soaking wet, hammered, crying and babbling nonsense about how he wanted to die. How everything was pointless. How he didn’t deserve an ounce of kindness of love. I had been drunk but terrified and didn’t know what to do bar tackling him into the biggest hug I could muster. We both fell over on the impact of my big body against his scrawny one and I stayed lying on the kitchen floor with him, clutching him to my chest while the party went on around us and he cried himself out.

Over the years it had become a ‘thing’ with us. When struggling, Matty sought me out for comfort and I was grateful for it. He was prone to these deep, dark moods and I worried about him so much. At least if he was pressed against my chest I knew he was safe.

This current struggle (although nowhere near as bad as that night at the party) had been building for weeks. He was going out more, drinking more and sleeping less. I knew that it was because we were shipping out on tour soon. Our first big tour of America. It was all we had ever dreamed of and it was a huge deal for us. None of us had ever been away from home for so long before and we were going to be on the road for the bones of a full year. Hell, Ross hadn’t even been to America before.

And there was so much pressure on us too. Pressure to do as much press as possible while we were there, pressure to make every single performance unforgettable so we could ‘break’ America – an idea that was so essential in UK music it defined whether you would be successful or not in your home country. The bands that didn’t ‘break’ the States, usually enjoyed frequent UK radio airplay and then gradually faded into obscurity. So there was that.

But then there was also growing pressure on us to start producing material for our second album, despite the fact that the first one wasn’t even a year old. I was trying to not to think about that too much, but I knew Matty was feeling it intensely which is why he had been drinking so much lately. I knew him well enough by now to know that he was drinking to get a break from his brain which was likely feeding him crap about how he’d never be able to write a decent song again and how he was an imposter and didn’t deserve the good publicity around our debut. He always put the most pressure on himself.

He shifted against me, looking up at me now and I knew what was going to happen next. This was a new part of our ‘get-shitfaced-Matty-home-safely’ dance but it had also become a thing in recent weeks, a trademark of drunk Matty that was starting to become permanent.

“Mate, no – ” I started but he cut me off by leaning in and pressing his lips against mine. Softly, like a whisper.

I pulled back, making space between us. All I could smell was him – the unique mix of expensive aftershave and his cigarette brand of choice. He was familiar. Safe.

“Matty, mate, you’re drunk,” I tried again, but he was so close to me now, his big, dark eyes focused solely on my lips as if they were the most important thing in the world. It was like he couldn’t see anything else.

He filled every single one of my senses and an old memory fluttered through my brain: _Van parked on the top of the town, hands everywhere, him, him, him…_

I swallowed deeply.

“But I love you G,” he said quietly before kissing me again.

My body betrayed me, deepening the kiss slightly before my rational brain could catch up. I forcibly reminded myself that this was also the third drunk kiss this week. Matty loved me, yes, but he was also so fucking drunk there was no way he would remember this tomorrow, much like the other times. This wasn’t proper consent.

Finally coming to my senses I broke the kiss and let go of him, rolling over onto my back. He didn’t seem to mind, instead snuggling down into the blankets further and closing his eyes.

I had a silent existential crisis as I heard his breathing slow down, signifying that he was drifting off into sleep.

My head was hazy. My brain replaying the feel of his lips against mine over and over again, rapidly imprinting it into my memory so I wouldn’t, couldn’t, forget it. I took a deep breath. I felt so fucking uncomfortable. I felt weird and all kinds of mixed up inside.

I loved Matty. I loved him with all my heart. But fuck, I was confused.

Lately the depth of love I held for him had been playing on my mind. I had been trying to get to know myself better this past year as our lives were starting to change and we became more well known in the world, and let’s just say I was starting to realise that maybe the feelings I had for Matty were a bit more than solely platonic. I had realised something terrifying: that I would do _anything_ for him. I would suffer for him. I would willingly set myself on fire for him if he asked me to, which definitely wasn’t healthy but it was the truth. And fuck, I was in awe of him too, in a way that probably overstepped the boundaries of a normal male friendship.

Was I gay? Straight? Bisexual? I had no fucking idea and all the labels did was stress me out. I mean I had a girlfriend. I had sex exclusively with women, but then… There had been a night when we were younger. We had crossed some lines and neither of us had ever brought it up again. He had been upset, we had drank too much and we were young – hormones could make you do crazy things and it was normal to experiment when you were that age. At least that was the story I had been telling myself ever since. I hadn’t told a soul about what had happened.

Time had passed since then. I had gotten my first seriously girlfriend and subsequently broke up with her when she cheated on me, I had fucked around, had my heart destroyed by Alannah Colson (less said the better), fucked around some more and was now in another serious relationship with Hannah. I loved her. I did… just probably not as obviously or as much as she seemed to love me.

And Matty had been Matty during this time. Let’s just say he had been a ‘lover’ ever since I first met him and whatever happened between us on that night hadn’t curtailed his sense of passion. He just loved everyone, his affections so large and all-encompassing that he could never condense it all down to just one person, one relationship. He wanted everyone. Always had, always would.

But over the years, the more our friendship had deepened and the closer we became (and the more he kissed me when he was drunk), the more I found myself thinking about that night in his van. And it freaked me out because I didn’t know what it meant.

I frowned and turned to look at Matty. He lay beside me, fast sleep, without the near-permanent crease of anxiety that was usually present on his forehead. He looked peaceful for the first time in weeks. He was smiling slightly, utterly content. Our arms were pressed together. I could feel the heat radiating from him. My heart softened as I took in his features. He never saw it himself, but he was beautiful. He didn’t even know how beautiful he was.

I lay there, fretting over my mixed-up feelings until eventually my brain was so fucking exhausted, the natural processes of my body took over and I fell asleep, fully clothed in Matty’s bed, vaguely aware that I was pulling his scrawny frame back into my arms and curling myself around him.

******

“George? For fuck’s sake!”

Hannah’s voice cut through my dreams and jolted me awake.

“Are you actually fucking kidding me?”

“Hmm?” I pushed myself into a sitting position, confused as fuck, half my brain still heavy with sleep.

Suddenly I had the dawning realisation that I wasn’t in my own bed with my girlfriend. I was in Matty’s room. Again.

Fuck.

I frantically looked around. Matty was nowhere to be found. Hannah’s voice was rising. She was yelling something at me, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy wondering where hungover Matty had gone. I vaguely heard the shower being switched on in the bathroom across the hall.

“Hello? Are you even listening to what I’m saying? George? GEORGE? Jesus Christ!”

She picked up one of Matty’s discarded socks and threw it at my head. That got my attention.

“What?” I asked, blinking.

“I said: How do you think I’m supposed to fucking feel when my boyfriend spends more time in bed with his best friend than with me?”

I focused on her then. She was standing at the bottom of the bed, clearly angry, but the hurt in her eyes let me know she was more upset than anything else. She was trying to be angry, because anger was easier to deal with. I knew the feeling.

“This is the third time this week! You’re leaving next week George, for fucking months, and yet you’re constantly with Matty instead of me. Do you see how this picture doesn’t add up?”

My heart twisted. I felt guilty. Hannah and I had been together for two years now, so it wasn’t like this was a new relationship. She had accepted that Matty and I were a package deal – she even thought it was cute at the start – but in the past year, since she had moved in with me, she had started to get more and more resentful of the amount of my time that Matty took up and the fact that I didn’t seem to mind.

This was just a continuation of a fight that had been simmering between us for the better half of the entire year.

“Hannah,” I said, my voice croaky with sleep. “Look, how about we just – ”

She shook her head. I heard the shower switch off across the hall.

“No. George, I’ve told you so many times how I feel about this. I’m actually sick of telling you. It’s like I’m talking to a wall – you just take nothing in and nothing changes. I’m grateful that you have such a good friend and I appreciate that Matty has his issues but fuck, do you not think it’s weird that you share a bed with him so often? You’re in your twenties for fuck’s sake!”

She sounded exasperated.

The bathroom door opened and Matty appeared in the doorway with a towel wrapped around his waist. I could tell from the expression on his face that he was hungover as shit. He looked shook. He was halfway into his bedroom when he realised what was happening, but by then Hannah had seen him and there was no hope for escape.

He said the word “fuck” quietly but with a lot of feeling. Hannah threw a glare at him.

“Oh fuck this. Actually FUCK this,” she threw her hands up in the air and pushed past Matty as she stormed across the hall to the bedroom we shared. The bedroom I kept forgetting to sleep in.

I just sat in Matty’s bed, my head spinning. It was too early for this kind of fight.

“Eh, mate?” Matty looked at me and nodded his head in the direction of the door, as if to say _“Christ George, maybe go after her, yeah?”_

I came to my senses and scrambled out of Matty’s bed.

“Hannah, please,” I said, following her into the room. I shut the door behind me for a bit of privacy, even though I knew Matty would ear wig on the entire row. He always did.

My stomach was in knots and I could tell things were about to escalate. She was throwing clothes into a bag.

“I don’t want to hear it George. I am so fucking tired of this bullshit,” she was crying properly now. Fuck.

I approached her cautiously and hesitantly took her hand. She allowed me to interlace my fingers with hers. She stopped what she was doing.

“You know what the worst part of all this is?” She said, her voice so quiet I had to strain to hear her now.

“We’ve had this exact same fight a million times and you haven’t once offered to change. You haven’t once put me first. I get that you and Matty are close, but sometimes I need you too George. And it fucking sucks that I’m so obviously your second choice,” Her voice was heavy with tears.

She ripped her hand out of mine.

“I just can’t be second best any more. I can’t stand it. I’m done George. I’m done. I’ll come back for the rest of my shit when you’re gone. Thanks for being an absolute dickhead. Have a good tour.”

She zipped up the bag and with that left me standing in our bedroom. I heard her footsteps practically run down the stairs. A few seconds later, she slammed the front door so hard she knocked down a picture that was hanging on the wall in the downstairs hall.

******

I was drunk, but not the type of fun drunk where you can’t feel any of your feelings and everything is hilarious. I was the shit type of drunk. The type of drunk where your feelings are very much present, in fact they’re intensified, and you just feel a bit crushed.

After Hannah had called me a dickhead and left, I had walked halfway down the stairs. She was already gone and I didn’t know why my reaction was to follow – I had no intention of chasing after her. I knew that the second she said she was done. It was if some haze had lifted off me and I realised that I wasn’t as upset as I should have been. That realisation alone was terrifying because it brought with it an intense surge of anxiety.

“Mate?” Matty’s voice was soft and stripped of its usual sarcastic tone.

He had found me sitting on a step in the middle of the stairs. I had my head in my hands and I was crying.

“Shit,” he sighed, nudging me slightly so he could slide in beside me on the step.

He wrapped an arm around me and gave me half a hug, as much as the space on the stairs would allow him to. He was dressed now. He smelled clean and good – a detail that just made me cry even harder.

Matty said nothing, he just patted my back.

Yes, I definitely wasn’t upset about Hannah. I knew she was right, I _was_ putting her second. I was upset because I couldn’t seem to care that the woman I had spent the last two years of my life with was leaving me. It was fucked up. I exhaled loudly and a sob slipped out. I suddenly felt very sorry for myself.

I had no idea what the _fuck_ I was doing. I didn’t even know what I was thinking. I was trapped in a body full of confused, mixed-up thoughts and emotions. It felt like I was stuck in slow motion, inching ever-forward to some catastrophic car crash in my future but not able to change my course. I felt like I was just waiting for some impact to occur.

And now, here I was, miserable in a club, on a boys’ night out organised by Adam to help cheer me up and take my mind off things.

My phone buzzed on the sticky nightclub table in front of me, breaking me out of my thoughts. I flipped it over to see the screen. There were multiple messages in the text group I had with my sisters:

> **Carebear:** GEORGE, HANNAH JUST TOLD ME YOU BROKE UP? **  
> Juliebean:** WTF? G???? **  
> BanANNA:** Seriously Georgie?!  
>  **Juliebean:** Mum is going to be devastated when she finds out.  
>  **Carebear:** G, I can see you’re online  
>  **Carebear:** Why did you break up?  
>  **Carebear:** GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG? Tell us!!!  
>  **BanANNA:** U okay m8? Thought u & Hannah were endgame.

I groaned and turned off my phone. I needed to get fucked up. I needed to get properly fall-flat-on-my-face-drunk. Like I actually needed to not remember my own name. I needed an escape.

No sooner had I finished the thought, Adam appeared at my side holding a tray of drinks like some kind of angel summoned by my desire for more alcohol and unhealthy self-destruction. I spied eight shots of tequila amongst the assortment of pints and spirits he was holding.

“Alright G?” He winked as he put a shot of tequila down in front of me.

“The quickest way to get over a break up – ”

“Is to get so fucked up you can’t remember your own name!” Ross finished the sentence as he reached over me from behind and grabbed a shot.

I turned to look at him as he slammed the tequila and grinned: “Cheers Georgie boy. Bottoms up!”

“Title of your sex tape,” Adam muttered without missing a beat and despite myself, I laughed.

Ross rolled his eyes at Adam and wandered over to Matty who had ditched us all earlier in the evening when he made friends with a group of women sat at the table next to us. They were on a hen do and Matty was now sporting a tiara that said ‘Bride to Be’ and a giant inflatable cock, as he took selfies with the women and made overtly sexual comments in the direction of the bride. He was hammered, yes, but he was also high as a fucking kite. I knew this from his not-so-subtle visits to the bathroom throughout the night.

“So how you holding up? You look miserable,” said Adam, sitting down beside me.

“Gee thanks Hann,” I deadpanned.

“Look, maybe it’s for the best? We _are_ going to be gone a long time…” he said and I nodded.

“Yeah, it’s just…” I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.

It’s just what? That I’m not sure I really loved her? That I can’t stop thinking about my best mate in a weird way and it’s freaking me out? That I’m not sure if I’m really straight anymore? That I have no fucking clue what I’m doing?

“Mate?” Adam asked quietly, waiting for me to finish my sentence.

“I just… loved her, you know?” I said quietly, hating myself for being suck a fucking chicken shit and lying about how I really felt. Adam patted me on the back and passed me another shot.

I downed it feeling even more pathetic.

The next hour was spent trying to escape from my head. A few more shots, a gin and a pint of some horrible beer Ross insisted I try and I was finally feeling more detached from my problems. I was properly tipsy now, at long last. I knew I’d be a hungover mess tomorrow but I didn’t care.

Adam and Ross had now been indoctrinated into the hen party. They tried to get me to join them, but despite my newfound tipsiness, I wasn’t in the mood for women and willy straws. I heard Ross telling them what was wrong with me, a chorus of sympathetic “Awww”’s coming from the table when he mentioned the words “break up”. 

I scanned the crowd, looking for Matty who had disappeared with two of the hens a little while ago. My heart sank a little when I realised he was probably shagging them in the toilets of the club. But then I heard his laugh. It cut through the music for a split second, my ears so finely tuned to it, and my eyes landed on him.

He was on the dancefloor, singing Rihanna at the top of his lungs and having the time of his life dancing with the hens. He moved his body like he was in absolute ecstasy – head thrown back, arms in the air, eyes closed, hips swaying, voice breaking as he tried to hit notes way out of his vocal range. The club lights illuminated him. He was so beautiful. It was like he almost wasn’t even real. My heart lifted in my chest in a way that both excited me and brought on that awful wave of anxiety again.

I watched him as he danced. He was completely unaware that his nose was bleeding.

*****


	7. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter is ridiculously long, so apologies in advance. George is still angsty AF, but things begin to heat up... Thank you for your views and kudos - I am so glad you're interested in this little fic. Enjoy!

**Chapter 5**

I had no idea what country I was in. I was so exhausted, I felt like I could see sounds and hear colours. The past three months had been an incredible blur of performances, interviews, wild parties, people, flights and so many things that we had once only dreamed about. Had we successfully ‘broken’ America? I wasn’t sure, but what I did know was that we were getting recognised in public more and more, and earlier tonight as we piled into the car sent to bring us to our hotel, a group of hysterical women had surrounded us. They had been waiting for us to leave and they chased the car for two blocks screaming our names (and various other sexually explicit things). It was wild.

And we had sold out venues. It was so hard to believe that once upon a time, we struggled to get ten people to see us perform for free in a local pub. Earlier this evening I had watched from behind my drum kit as Matty asked a crowd of easily 10,000 people: “Does anyone have a lighter?” when he dropped his own off the side of the stage by accident. Needless to say he immediately regretted it when a shower of lighters started raining down on him.

We were all adapting to this new way of life but Matty was soaking it up like a sponge. Over the past few months I had watched his stage persona develop in a way that was both incredible and slightly terrifying. Matty, who was used to us zoning out while he babbled on at us, was now capable of holding a huge crowd in the palm of his hand effortlessly. He was able to make them laugh, sing, cry, jump and scream on command. Every time he stepped on stage, a subtle transformation took place. I wasn’t sure if the others noticed it, but I saw it.

When he was on stage, he wasn’t afraid for people to see him. Like _really see him_. He put his pain on display. He put his passion on display. He held nothing back. It was raw. It was real. It was confronting. It was… him. He was becoming a certified rock star right in front of our eyes. When we spoke about it, he joked that it wasn’t even his final form and he was getting ready to evolve again, like some weird Pokemon that ran on a steady diet of music, cigarettes, booze, sex and drugs.

This tour hadn’t been without its challenges though. We were getting tired. We definitely weren’t eating well. We were partying too much, pushing ourselves too much and it was only now, three months in, that our new lifestyles were starting to catch up on us.

Thankfully tonight we weren’t on the bus. We were doing another show at the same venue tomorrow and our manager Jamie had booked us into a hotel. I got to sleep in an _actual_ bed tonight. I was so fucking happy about that fact I wanted to weep with joy.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come out mate?” Ross was saying. We were sitting in the lobby with all our shit while Jamie checked us in for the night.

Matty was on the phone nearby catching up with his mum, lovely Denise. From his tone of voice, she was lecturing him about something. He saw me watching him and he rolled his eyes and pointed to the phone. I smiled.

“Nah mate, I’m good,” Hann responded to Ross’s question.

“G?” Ross looked in my direction.

“No way, nope, nein, no. I have a date with a power shower and a king size bed and I am going to sleep like a fucking baby without you lot making noise,” I couldn’t hide my glee at the prospects of getting a solid eight hours. I _hated_ the tour bus.

“I can’t wait to just lie down and pass out,” I sighed happily.

“Title of your sex tape!” Matty quipped, joining us.

I rolled my eyes.

“How old are you?

“Old enough to know better love,” he winked at me and I couldn’t help the smirk that appeared on my face.

Jamie returned and passed out hotel keys to all of us. Hann and I grabbed our stuff and made our way to the lift.

“You two old ladies enjoy your night!” Ross called after us.

“You two try not get arrested or involved in some kind of scandal,” Hann called back.

As we waited for the lift I heard Jamie anxiously saying: “Has someone been in a scandal? Matty I swear to fucking god if it was you…”

******

_His eyes stared into mine and he smiled slowly. I had butterflies in my stomach. He moved towards me and pressed his lips against mine and I felt electricity running through my entire body. Fuck, he was beautiful. Tentatively I moved my hands into his hair, pressing him against my lips even harder. I didn’t want this to end. I could feel the familiar heat flooding through my body that had nothing to do with temperature and more to do with longing. I felt as though I had been waiting for this moment my whole life._

_He broke the kiss and pushed me backwards. I landed on the bed and the cool kiss of the sheets soothed my overheated skin. He stood in front of me and pulled off his shirt, which was, incidentally, one I had given him years ago._

_My hand reached for the bare skin of his stomach. I hooked my fingers into the waistband of his jeans and he laughed as I tugged at him, causing him to fall forward on top of me. I pulled him into a kiss, feeling braver now and growling deep in my throat as he pushed his hips against my own. He was hard and he wanted me to know it._

_I broke the kiss to gasp at the feel of him grinding against me. My lower stomach was quivering and he moaned, pressing harder. The noise he made drove me crazy and I reached my hand up to his hair again, grabbing a handful and tugging it so his head fell backward. He moaned louder now. I kissed at his neck as he continued to moan, getting louder and louder and…_

I jumped as I woke up, slightly confused and then remembered where I was. I was in a hotel. Matty was not with me. It was a dream. It had just been a dream. I lay there, hand clutched to my chest, trying to calm my rapid heartbeat down.

But then a loud moan came through the wall behind me.

That was _definitely_ Matty.

I froze and I lay there in the silence that followed, my heart picking up speed again and my stomach in knots. The silence was deafening. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.

Then the distinct noise of a headboard being slammed forcefully against the wall.

Oh fuck. _Fuckfuckfuck_.

He moaned again and I felt sick. He had obviously brought someone back with him after his night out. 

I was too hot, my sheets all crumpled up and stuck to me. I was sweaty and also had an embarrassing hard on after my indecent dream.

“Mmmm _fuuuck_ ,” Matty’s voice was so loud despite the fact there was an entire hotel wall between us.

“Oh my _god_ ,” I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, willing my body to cool down, to block out what was happening.

Matty’s moans of pleasure had obviously excited my subconscious enough to give me the start of a sex dream but I didn’t need this right now. I couldn’t lie here and listen to this. Jesus fucking Christ.

I was about to get up and go sleep in the bathtub just to get away from the noises when the headboard stopped banging. I froze, half in and half out of the bed when Matty started talking.

“You like that?”

His voice was muffled but I could still make out what he was saying and the faint positive response from a woman (I think).

“I just want to make you feel so fucking good,” Matty’s voice slithered through the air, dark and full of something delicious.

I fell back onto the bed. My skin was burning up. My cock was so hard it was throbbing against my boxers. My hands started to run themselves down my lower stomach and I shivered.

“Tell me what you want love. You want me to fuck you? You want me to make you scream?”

I knew I was done for then. I was trembling with a weird mixture of anticipation and absolute disgusted with myself as my hand slipped under the waist band of my boxers.

I felt like all my senses has been turned up to eleven as I wrapped my hand around my cock, gasping at the sensation.

“Just like that. God, yes. Fuck, _fuucck._ You feel so **fucking** good,” Matty was moaning through the wall, the banging starting up again, more rhythmical. Like he was getting ready to finish the job.

The confidence that I could hear in his voice excited me. The only time we had been together, he hadn’t made much noise. We had been young. While Matty had more experience, I hadn’t even fucked a girl at that point in time. I had been shy and insecure. Hesitant.

I found myself breathing heavier and heavier as I wondered what it would be like to be with _this_ Matty. Confident Matty. Cocky Matty. Matty who apparently liked to talk dirty during sex (although that didn’t really surprise me).

Matty moaned again loudly and I surprised myself by answering with my own low, quiet moan of pleasure. My hand was moving faster, keeping time with the noise of the headboard against the wall. The slams were coming harder and faster now, drumming up to a continuous beat.

Images of Matty danced behind my closed eyes. Matty in the back of the van. Matty looking down at me and biting his bottom lip as I filled my mouth with his cock. Matty’s serene expression as he came, the taste of him coating my tongue. Strong, distinctive. Ensuring I’d still taste him hours later.

Matty on stage earlier tonight, swigging out of a bottle of red wine and dry humping his mic stand in tune to the beat of one of our songs. Matty in my dream, grinding his cock against my own…

I felt my orgasm building in the base of my stomach and then through the wall I heard the thing that finished me off: “Come for me babe, _fuck_ , come for me.”

I came so hard, the world went blank for a split second. The sounds of a woman having (what sounded like) the best orgasm of her life cutting through the bliss I was feeling and ruining it.

I lay there, heart pounding, boxers soaking wet and full of my cum and slowly that horrible anxiety that had been my constant companion for the past few months filtered back in.

I had just had a wank while my best friend was fucking in the room next to me. I had literally rubbed one out while listening to something I really shouldn’t have been listening to.

I was a fucking pervert.

*****

We were in Arizona and it was 36 fucking degrees. It was after midnight and the tour bus felt like a sauna. We were driving through the night to our next show and I was melting. Sweat was pumping off my body in buckets. It was so hard to believe that we had been on the road for almost a solid six months. The more we found ourselves in ridiculously hot places, the more I found myself longing for the drab British summer with its conservative 14 degree sunshine and regular rain showers. I was also longing to be in one place for more than 24 hours at a time. And an actual bed where I could stretch out properly. My heart leapt every time I thought about my own bed which was patiently waiting for me back in London, providing Hannah hadn’t stolen all my stuff (I hadn’t heard anything from her since we left).

I was sitting in the little make-shift studio we had created down the back of the tour bus working on the bones of a new song. Everyone else, bar Matty, had gone to bed ages ago in a bid to escape the relentless heat.

It had been approximately three months since I had gotten myself off while listening to my best friend fuck someone else and I was _not_ okay. I could no longer say that the _persuasion_ I had towards Matty was strictly platonic (it wasn’t – I had replayed the soundtrack of his sex voice in my mind while wanking so much over the past three months it was a bit of a joke at this stage), but I was still struggling to identify what this actually _meant_ for me. I was still really fucking confused and, to top it all off, over the past few weeks I was being a bit of a dick towards Matty – projecting my mixed-up thoughts and frustration with myself onto him which wasn’t cool. I knew that, I just...

…I just wasn’t in a good place with it all.

Given that I couldn’t get Matty’s sex voice out of my head (and given that there had been a few more drunk kisses during this time frame, _always_ initiated by Matty but never spoken of the next day) I did what any confused man would do: I immediately bedded as many women as I possibly could in quick succession. I was hoping I’d find some clue that would help me figure myself out while I was in bed with them, and while the sex was nice, I still couldn’t stop Matty’s voice from running through my head at the critical moment of climax – _“Come for me babe, fuck, come for me.”_

I still couldn’t stop how right it felt when he sought me out for a hug when he was upset or when he slung his arm around my shoulders absent-mindedly in an interview. I both hated him for making me feel so confused and craved his touch at the same time.

As someone who had always been awkward around women, with my newfound fame I didn’t even have to try to get them into bed anymore. They sought me out, which was an interesting change of pace. But the more sex I had, the more anxious and mixed up I felt. To be honest, it really wasn’t helping me gain any clarity and while the sex was good in the moment, as soon as the women left, I’d be back to fretting over how I felt.

My feelings for Matty were really starting to fuck me up. Because, I had come to the terrifying conclusion, that’s what they were – _feelings_. I had no other word to express it.

Feelings.

Feelings with a capital fucking ‘F’.

It was overwhelming.

It also didn’t help that for the past four weeks Matty had been flirting with me. Sort of. I think. I didn’t know if he could sense the weird vibe emanating from me and was doing it on purpose, or if he was just being Matty but it was driving me fucking insane.

It started when he referred to me as his “husband” in a recent interview. He had laughed it off at the time but ever since then, he kept cracking jokes about our “relationship” and how much we adored each other. Everyone thought it was cute. I wanted to punch him every time he brought it up because all it did was make me remember that night in the van all those years ago.

And given that we had never, _ever_ spoken about that night or any of the times he’d drunkenly kissed me since, I knew I couldn’t tell him what was currently going through my head. I also didn’t want to fuck up our friendship. We were mates, good mates, best mates (despite me being a prick at the minute). Matty was Matty - the kid who had given me zero choice when it came to joining the band. He’d been there for me when I’d gotten my heart broken, when I was going through tough times, when I was fighting with my mum - he was the one I always turned to. And vice versa. I didn’t want anything to happen that would fuck us up.

It was such a cliché, boy has feelings for best mate. Pines away in secret. Maybe composes some pathetic ambient music about it that will never see the light of day. Not that I had done that...

I sighed and pulled the headphones off my ears, throwing them onto the seat beside me. I couldn’t get a specific transition on the track just right. It was frustrating me.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Matty glancing up at me from his own laptop screen. He had been hovering around me all day. He had been getting more needy in recent weeks. I knew that life on the road was catching up with him, but he didn’t want to admit it. He was putting on a brave face because this was our dream and dreams are something you’re supposed to be grateful for, even when they’re hard.

He frowned when he saw the stressed-out look on my face and I watched him as he closed his laptop, got up and left the room without a word. He came back a few minutes later with a box of cigarettes and placed them on the seat beside me.

“You’ve just read my mind,” I said, picking up the box. I was dying for a smoke but when I opened it I realised that Matty had replaced all the cigarettes with spliffs.

“Spliff for your thoughts?” He asked and I nodded, helping myself to a particularly fat one.

“I call that one the Daniel special,” Matty said as I put the spliff in my mouth and he handed me his lighter. It was black with our signature box on it.

“Where did you even get this?” I asked, examining it. It was fucking cool.

“Look, when you’re in a band it makes sense to appoint yourself the go-to for sign-off on all merchandising ideas,” he shrugged.

I laughed.

“Can you get me one?”

“Yeah, but it’ll cost you a fiver,” he said, grinning at me as I rolled my eyes.

I lit the spliff and took a deep inhale. No matter how many times I had done this, my body still relaxed instantly. It was an automatic response now. Matty and I smoked at least one spliff together every day. It was a ritual we had been doing ever since that day in his house when he threw a pair of drumsticks at me.

I remember during our first smoke together I had asked him how he knew I played the drums. He told me he had noticed me tapping on anything that was put in front of me and I tapped in a way that was “way too disciplined to be solely anxious behaviour.”

“Besides, I drum too,” he had said, stretching out on the grass in his back garden. “You were doing warm up beats you idiot.”

I smiled slightly to myself, remembering the exchange as I blew out a thick cloud of smoke.

“Hey, do you remember that time you took my spliff outside school?” I asked, feeling nostalgic now.

“Yeah,” Matty laughed. “I was such a dickhead.”

“You threatened to kick the shit out of me,” I was laughing now at the thoughts of it. I would have definitely broken his nose if he had tried to fight me back then.

“I was just intimidated by your height mate. You have to understand, I’m like a small, stupid dog. Rather than running away from danger, I charge towards it to freak it out. I was trying to confuse you so _you_ wouldn’t kick the shit out of _me_. Reverse psychology Georgie boy,” he tapped the side of his head and I snorted.

“That makes zero fucking sense!”

“Yeah, well, do you remember the night we became proper friends. Like _proper_ proper mates?” He countered.

I groaned and pulled a hand down my face.

“You had that insane party at your parents’ house the night before Christmas Eve,” I said. I could practically _smell_ the alcohol from that night, even all these years later.

“The Nightmare Before Christmas Eve. Yes, and?” He said, dark eyes trained on me. They were dancing in the low light of the bus.

“And I was young and stupid and couldn’t hold my alcohol. I told you I was going outside to get some air…”

“And?”

“And you found me passed out in a wheelie bin cradling a bottle of vodka like it was my first-born child,” I shook my head.

He laughed.

“I decided then that you’d be my BFF.”

“Wait _you_ decided? So I didn’t even get a say in it?” I said.

He smiled at me and my stomach did a little flip against my will. I could feel the weed softening everything. The reduction in my stress levels felt divine.

“Oh I’m sorry, you thought this was a consensual friendship?” He feigned surprise and I laughed.

“God, we were such fucking idiots back then, weren’t we?” I said softly.

“Nah mate, we were fucking legends,” Matty grinned.

We continued smoking in silence, just enjoying each other’s company. The gentle sway of the bus making me feel slightly sleepy, but in a good way. Matty grabbed his laptop again and started playing some music that was reminiscent of our younger years – a dirty beat that could only be straight out of the UK. It was the kind of thing we’d listen to in my shitty car or Matty’s shitty car as we drove to the next big house party or carted all our equipment to our next gig in some shit pub in the back end of nowhere.

He had the music low enough that it wouldn’t wake the others, but he got up and started dancing to it anyway. He was always physically unable to sit still when there was a decent beat playing. It was like music just got under his skin and he had to move to sweat it out. He closed his eyes as he moved, hands following the beat as if it was something tangible in the air around him and he could touch it.

His usually pale face was flushed slightly thanks to the heat on the bus. It was sweltering and I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he moved and swayed. He was graceful in his own unique way. He opened his eyes slightly, smiling softly at me as he noticed me watching him. I couldn’t stop looking at him – he was captivating. A distant part of me wondered if this was how women felt when they looked at him (because Matty was always the favourite with our female fans and just women in general). Was he this magnetic to everyone or just me? What was it about him that just drew people in?

Or maybe there wasn’t any single, one thing that did it. Maybe it was just everything about him. Matty was unlike anyone I had ever met in my entire life, he always had been. He was just so… himself. Maybe that was it. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t hiding behind some bullshit fake sense of self like the rest of us. He was just… Matty.

The tune ended and was replaced by something more chilled. I was feeling dreamy and soft around the edges, like I was both present in the here and now but also watching myself from a distance. We had both finished our spliffs.

“Want another?” Matty asked.

“Sure. When in… wherever we are right now. At least if I get stoned enough I might be able to get some sleep in this fucking heat,” I sighed.

“I feel like I’m dying. It’s so fucking hot,” Matty groaned. He threw the packet of spliffs at me and I caught it with one hand and took out two. I put both in my mouth and lit them and then handed one to him. His fingers brushed mine briefly as he took the smoke from me.

“Speaking of cradling vodka bottles in wheelie bins, do you want a drink? I have one in my bunk somewhere. I picked it up the last time we were in duty free,” I said.

“God, yes,” said Matty.

The flashback slammed itself into my skull without warning: Matty’s voice moaning as he fucked _–_ _God, yes. Fuck, fuucck. You feel so **fucking** good_ _._

I quickly left the room before he could notice the blush that was spreading across my face and crept into the bunk area so I wouldn’t wake the others. I could hear Ross snoring lightly. Adam’s bunk light was still on. I knocked gently on the side of the bunk – proper bunk etiquette – but there was no response. I slowly pulled back the privacy curtain and found Adam passed out with a book on his face. I removed the book carefully, smiling, and turned off his light.

I was suddenly overcome with a deep sense of love for my friends. I was getting a bit emotional. I grabbed the bottle of vodka from my bunk and headed back to Matty.

When I opened the door, he was in the process of peeling off his t-shirt. He turned around and caught me looking. I immediately threw my gaze onto the floor and held up the bottle of vodka. He moved himself back over to the seating area and sprawled across it.

“Gimmie!” He said, holding out his hand and grasping at the air like a child looking for a toy.

“Don’t you want a glass? A mixer?” I said, handing the bottle over.

“I thought the whole point of this was to drink ourselves into such a stupor that we can’t feel this fucking heat and can actually get some sleep,” he said, wincing as he took a swig of straight vodka.

“You’re an animal,” I said.

“Only where it counts love,” He winked at me as he passed the bottle back.

My face suddenly felt very hot again and he caught my reaction this time.

“Are you actually blushing?” Matty smirked at me.

“No, it’s just hot,” I snapped and took a drink.

He raised an eyebrow at me slightly, but didn’t push it. We drank and smoke in silence. Matty took out his phone and started posting Insta stories. I tried to go back to the track I had been working on, but I kept getting distracted by him as he danced around the room for his audience. He caught me looking at him more than once. Each time giving me a little smirk.

The more we drank, the more hazy and warm and relaxed I felt. I tried to focus on my work. I put my headphones back on and tried my fucking hardest to block out Matty, who was now answering fan questions despite the fact that it was the early hours of the morning.

After about an hour, a hand on my shoulder made me jump. Matty was sitting beside me, looking at the screen.

“Want me to listen?” he half-mouthed half-mimed the words at me, gesturing to his ears with his hands, and I nodded, repositioning myself so he could use my laptop.

I froze when he reached up and placed his hands over the headphones on my ears, as if he was going to take them off but then stopped. Something shifted between us significantly, and before I knew what was happening, I was leaning in towards him and he was leaning towards me and our lips touched.

Lightning bolts went off in my brain and I had that out-of-body sensation again, like I was standing elsewhere in the room, watching this happen to me. His lips were so soft, impossibly soft, softer than I remembered. There was zero hint of stubble on his face. He had shaved recently.

His hands found their way to my face and as soon as I felt his fingertips gently moving down and cupping my jaw, everything inside me melted. I couldn’t think anymore. I could barely breathe. I was powerless. My heart was slamming against my ribcage so hard, I felt like I was on the verge of passing out. I felt unreal. This couldn’t be happening. Was this actually happening?

His tongue licked against my top lip as we kissed and I opened my mouth at his request, his tongue immediately slipping between my lips, brushing against my own. Tasting me. He tasted like weed and vodka and something familiar that sent heat flooding into the lower part of my body. It was fucking intoxicating.

I heard myself making a deep noise in my throat and then suddenly he pulled away from me.

Fuck. I had ruined it.

I opened my eyes, expecting the worst, an apology ready to burst forth but it collapsed in my mouth when I saw his face.

He was studying me carefully. His face was flushed. He licked his lips, which were red and swollen. He was beautiful beyond words. He widened his eyes slightly and then I felt it: the unspoken permission from years ago being exchanged between us again:

_Do you want?_

_Yes, I want. I want._

I swallowed. Hard.

We were like music. Both of us sitting there, waiting, a pause, before the main theme would swell again. And it did.

He crashed back into me so hard the second time it was violent. My head was spinning. This time he pulled the headphones off my head and pushed his body up against mine as much as our seating arrangement would allow. My hands automatically slid down his bare body to his slender hips, like they had never forgotten their place there, even though the years had passed and we had both changed beyond measure.

His hands were in my hair now and his mouth was on mine and I was stoned and half drunk and half mad as we kissed and kissed and kissed like we were both underwater and trying to steal oxygen from each other.

His voice rippled through my head – _God, yes. Fuck, fuucck. You feel so **fucking** good_ – like a mantra, a prayer, and my body responded. I wanted this. I wanted this more than anything.

I could feel the corners of his mouth turn into a grin as he pressed against me and realised how fucking hard I was. Honestly, my erection had sprung to attention the second he had slipped his tongue into my mouth.

He pulled back and again, I made an involuntary noise at the absence of him, but I quickly fell silent when his hands found the hem of my shirt and started pulling it up, ripping at the material clumsily, frantically. I helped him.

He threw my shirt across the room and moved himself into my lap properly then, knees bracketing my own. He kissed me again, a hint of teeth grazing my bottom lip, our bare skin meeting. Both of us were slick with sweat. It was so fucking hot. I let out a gasp as he dropped his hips unexpectedly and grinded himself against me slowly, teasingly. It was torture. It was heaven. It felt so fucking good. My dick throbbed at the friction and I knew that I was starting to lose control.

More kissing. Matty was running his tongue down my jaw now, down my neck, kissing over my collar bones and then he slid out of my lap and onto his knees in front of me. His hands found my belt. He unbuckled it, a determined look on his face. I was trying to focus on breathing properly so I didn’t pass out.

Then the single hottest thing that has ever happened to me occurred.

He undid the top button of my jeans and leaned forward, taking the zip between his teeth, and pulled it down excruciatingly slowly, his eyes not breaking contact with my own on he did it. He placed his hands on the waistband of my boxers and paused for a brief second, again, as if asking permission:

_Can I?_

_Please. Please._

And then his hands were around my dick. I gasped as he slid my cock out of my boxers and ran his hand up my length. I saw a grin threatening at the corners of his mouth.

“Georgie…” He breathed out my name and I had to bite my lip to stop me from moaning.

The way he said my name… _fuck_. It sounded like something holy.

I desperately wanted him to talk dirty to me, like he had spoken to that woman in the hotel months ago. I wanted him to tell me filthy things, I wanted to hear his voice strain with effort as we fucked.

So many scenarios were running through my head, but all I could hear was Matty’s climax moan and I desperately wanted to hear it first hand, not through my bedroom wall again. I wanted to be there, a willing participant, the next time it happened. I wanted it to happen with me.

He tightened his grip around my cock and moved his mouth closer.

“I’ve always wondered what you taste like,” he murmured then, his breath hitting the tip of my cock and making me feel dizzy. I was so turned on I actually felt sick.

And then he took me into his mouth and the world dropped away to nothing. All I could feel was him. His mouth was hot, wet, something I had been craving my entire life but didn’t have a word to describe.

My hands found their way to his hair then and he made a noise as I gripped his hair slightly. He was so fucking beautiful.

He teased me, alternating between using his hands and his mouth and I never wanted it to end. I was completely drunk on everything about him. He was all I could see. His mouth was all I could feel. He was everything.

He was fucking everything.

I came so hard, I bit my lip and drew blood to stop me from waking up the entire tour bus.

I immediately lost the ability to move, speak, think. I felt like my energy had been drained from me. My legs were trembling and I felt shaky and not real. Matty knelt between my legs. His face flushed, his hair dishevelled and a look in his eyes that I couldn’t read.

We were silent as the weight of what had just taken place between us fully landed. Suddenly embarrassed, I moved and started to pull my pants back up. Matty shook his head, as if waking from a dream and got to his feet.

“We should probably say goodnight,” he spoke then.

“Um, yeah,” I said.

Matty leaned in to me and kissed me quickly on the lips and then was gone before I had the time to say anything else.

The next day he acted as if nothing had happened.

******


	8. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I have a double-update for you today! George is struggling and cracking up, and things come to a head (zero pun intended!). Thanks so much for all your views, kudos etc. it means so much to me and I love that other people are enjoying this little fic as much as I am :)

**Chapter 6**

“Alright my babies, how you doing?”

The roar of the crowd was deafening and for the first time since we came out on stage, I blinked myself awake and actually _looked_ at the sea of people in front of us. We had been playing for the bones of an hour already, but I had only just woken up to the fact that I was on stage in front of thousands of people. They were screaming and singing and moving. My heart swelled a little at the sight. It lifted my mood slightly.

Truthfully, I hadn’t been happy for the past few weeks. I was exhausted and just going through the motions. I was at that stage of exhaustion (both mentally and physically) where I couldn’t actually remember the last time I had gotten a decent night’s sleep. I was physically present and playing the drums, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually I had checked out. I felt bad about it, especially given the amount of people who were here to see us, but it was the truth. I tended to do that when I was upset – just check out. I was trying to get better at sitting with my moods and staying present (the by-product of reading a book on Buddhism) but old habits die hard.

“You love me? No, I love _you_ baby,” Matty was hanging off the stage, talking to a fan and trying to grab something the crowd was passing his way.

I felt sick as I looked at him. We hadn’t spoken since the events that had occurred between us that night somewhere in Arizona. Well, we had spoken but we hadn’t _spoken_ if that made sense? We danced around each other. Correction, _I_ danced around him, overthinking absolutely everything I said and did and feeling desperately uncomfortable in the process. Matty was… just Matty. He acted like everything was fine and it was business as usual between the two of us and I guess maybe for him it was, but for me? Not so much.

The vibe between us hadn’t shifted. He still sought me out for hugs when he was upset. Still absent-mindedly flung his arm over my shoulders in interviews. We still talked about every single thing under the sun together… except the one thing that we needed to talk about.

Correction again: The one thing _I_ apparently needed to talk about.

My mind was tuned to a constant narrative that went a little something like this: What had actually happened between us? What did it mean? Did he have feelings for me? What was going on? _What was this?_

I was torturing myself and I knew I was. It felt like I was slowly dying on the inside but I really wasn’t sure why I was being so fucking obsessive in my thinking. The logical solution would be to, you know, actually talk to Matty about it but given how he hadn’t brought it up either made me feel a bit terrified of even attempting that conversation. My thoughts about him were in absolute turmoil ever since that night on the bus. I couldn’t fucking stop thinking about it.

“George think fast!” Matty’s voice booming out of the speakers caught me off guard.

I looked up just in time to see something flying at my face. I reacted and caught it, dropping my drumsticks in the process. It was a red, lacy bra that had ‘Love you G’ scrawled across one of the cups.

I was suddenly very aware of the fact that everyone was looking at me. I blushed, forced a smile and waved in the direction of the crowd.

“I love you too,” I mumbled into the microphone. The crowd cheered.

We were playing an outdoor festival and the weather was lovely, but I couldn’t enjoy it. Matty was going off on a tangent now, speaking to some young girls who were holding up a massive sign asking Ross to marry them. Matty was trying to negotiate a dowry for Ross, who was arguing over the fact that he was worth more than a fiver and a spliff.

I zoned back out as I picked up my drumsticks and hung the bra off one of my cymbal stands because I didn’t know what else to do with it. I needed to get some fucking sleep. I just couldn’t understand how Matty was so… fucking Matty about everything. He was totally fine. At ease, relaxed, chilled out – all the things I wasn’t.

There had been one time in the past few weeks where I thought we might have addressed what had happened between us. It was before a show in California. I was in the dressing room backstage doing some yoga. I had started doing the stretches before shows to counteract the physical demands of so much drumming and to try and find some fucking inner peace that wasn’t materialising despite my best efforts.

Ross and Adam were off exploring and Matty had wandered in post-interview, stopping dead in his tracks as he watched me move myself into a very inelegant king pigeon pose. I looked up at him because he was hovering. He opened his mouth, as if he was about to say something important and then thought the better of it and closed it. He gave me a look that was full of something I couldn’t decipher and then he just left the room.

I could still feel the way my heart sank as I moved myself into a wobbly downward facing dog. I hated that I wasn’t brave enough to just have it out with him. To just say, “We need to talk. _I_ need to talk.”

“This song is not about chocolate, but it’s called Chocolate,” Matty’s voice cut through my thoughts and my body started playing automatically as he counted us in.

My eyes landed on him again as he moved across the stage in front of me, the music working its way through his body. He was bobbing his head, beaming at the audience, being utterly charismatic as usual. He was beautiful. He turned around and caught me looking at him, giving me a cheesy smile and a wink. A thought popped into my head as clear as day: I loved Matty.

I loved him.

I was _in love_ with him.

It was right then that my brain forgot how to hold drumsticks and I stumbled, messing up my beat. I suddenly felt very, very sick.

Fuck.

Matty laughed at me and said, “Steady on love,” into his mic before launching into the second verse and I could _feel_ Ross casting a confused glance in my direction. I had been playing this song since I was a teenager – we all had. I never messed up. Ever.

Ross met my eyes and mouthed the words, “You okay?” but it didn’t register. I loved Matty. I loved Matty. _I was in love with Matty._ I was going to be sick.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, trying to refocus all my attention on my actual job and silently praying for the rest of the show to pass as quickly as possible so I could leave. I had to get out of here. I needed to go away and have a nervous breakdown somewhere in private, where I could freak out without thousands of people looking at me. 

The rest of the show was a blur but finally it was done and I half walked/half ran off stage as soon as I was able to. I could hear Matty’s voice calling my name, but I ignored him.

“Mate? You okay?” Ross was following me.

I felt so fucking sick I couldn’t answer him. Instead I bee-lined for the nearest bathroom, dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and promptly puked my guts up.

“G?” Ross’s concerned voice outside the bathroom door.

I groaned pathetically into the toilet bowl before heaving again.

“You okay?”

I physically couldn’t answer him. I was in shock. I loved Matty. I was in love with Matty. Fuck my actual life.

I started cry then as the weight of it landed on me fully and I stopped heaving. I loved Matty. Like I _proper_ loved him. I was head over heels in love with him. _How_ could I have been so fucking stupid? This was not a good thing. This would not end well.

“G? I’m coming in,” Ross said.

He pushed open the door and found me hugging the toilet and pretty much weeping.

“Shit, what’s the matter? Food poisoning? Hangover?” Ross reach out and put his hand against my clammy forehead like a worried mother.

“I don’t think you have a temperature,” he frowned at me.

Of course I didn’t have a temperature, my body was just so deeply in shock about my feelings I was having a fucking allergic reaction to them.

Ross took out his phone.

“Mate, I love you but I swear if you take a fucking selfie right now,” I groaned and Ross smirked.

“While the temptation to show the internet your plight is very high, I’m just going to text one of the boys and get them to bring you down some water. You need to sit for a second until you’re okay to move. I’m afraid to leave you in case you pass out and smack your head off the toilet,” Ross said, typing out a message.

“You look like shit,” he added as an afterthought.

“Thanks mate,” I deadpanned.

I reached up and flushed the toilet and then put my head in my hands. I was trembling and silently praying that Matty wouldn’t arrive. I knew he’d quiz me incessantly until he got to the bottom of why I was sick. I did not need that right now in my current fragile state.

Ross got down onto the floor beside me. He grinned at me and patted my leg comfortingly.

“Man, all the times we’ve ended up on floors in bathrooms,” he laughed.

Flashback of Matty and I hammered on the bathroom floor of Tony’s bar while I wrote _Hann is a wanker_ behind the toilet. Matty thought it was so funny – he could barely breathe because he was laughing so hard. Ross had stumbled into the cubical then, taken one look at Matty and I tangled together on the floor in hysterics, had also started to laugh and then had promptly passed out on top of both of us.

Matty had been so happy back then, even though he had been struggling a bit with his mental health and issues at home. And he had been so beautiful too with his emo hair and those black-rimmed glasses he used to wear. Even then he was beautiful to me. Was I in love with him then too?

My nausea rose up again. I was definitely in some kind of shock.

“Oh god,” I groaned as my stomach lurched. I scrambled up to the toilet and got sick again, half apologising, half crying at Ross. I suddenly just wanted my Mum.

At some point Hann appeared, bottles of water in tow. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw him instead of Matty.

“Matty had an interview. He said feel better,” Hann said, obviously seeing a weird look on my face as he passed me the water.

They made me rehydrate myself and then helped me to my feet. Adam went off in search of Jamie to get me out of another interview I was supposed to be doing post-show. Ross pretty much carried me out to the tour bus as I tried to wrap my mind around my latest realisation.

“Don’t worry G, it’s probably just some 24-hour bug or something. Lots of water and some sleep and hopefully you’ll feel better tomorrow,” he said as he helped me into my narrow little bunk.

If only it was that simple.

I was so tired but mentally I couldn’t shut off my thoughts. I felt out of it. Dream-like. Weird. I floated in and out of sleep. At some point, I woke up and could sense someone hovering outside my bunk. I knew it was Matty. I was so finely tuned to him, it was like I could sense his aura.

The corner of the curtain that was closest to my face pulled back revealing a sad looking Matty. He jumped when he realised I was awake. Neither of us spoke. We just stared at each other.

He had been wearing eyeliner earlier before we went on stage, and now it was smudged across his cheeks. I had no idea what time it was, but the bus was dark and quiet. His eyes were heavy with something and I knew that he was struggling. He was seeking me out. He didn’t say a word, but I knew he was asking permission. Our bodies spoke:

_Can I?_

_Yes._

I shifted over as far as I could in the bunk (which wasn’t a lot) so he could climb in beside me. He was tiny in comparison to me and easily curled up against my chest. He sniffed and I realised he was crying. My heart ached. He always found it hard to be alone when we came off stage. It was like he couldn’t cope with the sudden drop in dopamine that occurred when he had to leave the audience behind.

I wrapped my arms around him and held him tightly. Eventually his sniffles stopped and his breathing deepened as he fell asleep. I stayed awake a little while longer, my head full of the sensation of him against my chest, the smell of his hair, the way his breath was tickling my neck and at some point I drifted off too.

When I woke up the next morning, Matty was gone.

******

I was drunk, too drunk and way too high. Tears were prickling at my eyes. I closed the door behind me and forced myself to take a deep breath before I stumbled over to the sink and splashed water on my face, trying to calm myself down.

It was the last night of tour and we had just performed a sell-out gig. Everyone was excited and giddy. An after-show party took us to a nearby nightclub where there had been too many shots and too many drugs, and now an after-after-show party was happening in our hotel suite. The girl working at reception when we checked in was a huge fan and had upgraded us to the penthouse and it was insane – room after room of sheer luxury. It was bigger than the house I shared with Matty. It was most definitely the nicest place we had ever stayed while on the road.

Everyone was letting loose and enjoying themselves. Truthfully, it had been a long few months on the road and everyone was exhausted but in the mood to celebrate it finally being over. Our entire crew was here, plus some random “friends” (read: women) Matty had made in the club earlier.

The reason why I was trying not to cry in the bathroom was because things between Matty and I were fine. In fact, they were exactly the fucking same as they always had been. Only there was one difference: I was in love with him and I was suffering. I felt like a pathetic teenager pining after someone who didn’t feel anything when they looked at me. Who looked at me with the same level of passion as they looked at an inanimate object, like a chair or a wardrobe.

A small part of me was relieved that our friendship hadn’t been messed up by what had happened between us, but the other part of me fucking hated it. I couldn’t get what happened between us out of my mind. Every minor interaction between us now had taken on a huge significance to me, but for Matty everything was the same. And it was so hard for me to just stand there and feel all these feelings when I knew he didn’t feel the same.

And he didn’t. I knew that. While everything had changed for me, nothing had for him. He still went out and flirted with women and men. He still disappeared with random women in nightclubs. He still posted thirst traps online just for the attention. He still sought me out for comfort and cuddled me, unaware that I was struggling not to kiss him. It was both heaven and hell.

I loved him but I hated the way he made me feel. 

He now lived in my head rent-free at all times. I couldn’t stop thinking of him. Every time I closed my eyes I felt the memory of his lips on mine, saw his eyes gazing into mine, heard his voice: _I’ve always wondered what you taste like._

I was cracking up.

“Fuck,” I sighed, splashing my face again.

I was too high for this. If I sobered up a little, maybe these feelings wouldn’t be so overwhelming?

These _feelings_. Ugh.

I had tried to convince myself that it was a crush, that it would pass, but I knew that wasn’t true. How could it be when my heart literally soared every time he looked at me? I knew I was done for here. I knew by how desperate my desire was to take care of him. All I wanted to do was protect him, mind him, keep him safe, make sure he was okay. I knew I’d die for him without question. I’d do anything for him. It was an intensity of feeling that I had never experienced before in my life.

Sure, I had been _in love_ before, but this was a completely different creature. This was actually tangible. It was physically affecting me. It felt raw and violent but also pure and devoted at the same time. It made me feel sick and ecstatic. High and low. Overjoyed and wrecked with anxiety. It was all-consuming and deeply disorientating. I had even googled ‘Is love sickness an actual thing?’ in a fit of despair the other night.

“You’re pathetic,” I said to my reflection, running a wet hand through my hair.

My hands were shaking. I took a smoke out of my back pocket and lit up, taking a deep drag and coughing when I realised it was spliff. So much for trying to sober up.

I turned as the bathroom door opened and a drunken couple stumbled in, obviously looking for somewhere private. I could hear someone – Jamie – calling my name outside.

I plastered an easy-going smile onto my face (it was my go-to these past few weeks lest anyone see what a mess I was) and went back outside, the couple swiftly closing the bathroom door behind me as I left. I made my way into the living area which was packed with people and Jamie grabbed me into a one-armed hug that was more like a headlock. He was hammered.

“This man, this man is a fucking genius!” He declared and everybody cheered. I took another long drag of my spliff.

“An icon!” Jamie released me and slapped me so hard on the back, I almost fell over. Someone shoved a drink into my hand and, completely forgetting the fact that I was trying to get a bit more sober, I downed it.

I also subsequently downed another three shots by accident, so by the time I stumbled out into the hallway and saw Matty wrapped up in a stunning brunette, I had lost the ability to keep my thoughts to myself.

They were so caught up in each other, they didn’t realise I was standing there staring at them. I watched in slow motion as he cupped the back of her neck and drew her in for an obscenely passionate kiss. My heart dropped into my stomach. His hands found their way to her hair. Her hands were toying with the waistband of his jeans. I felt sick.

As he moved his body, I felt the whispered memory of it against my own. I could still feel his lips on my lips. His hot breath on my neck. His mouth wrapped around my cock.

And then an unpleasant revelation occurred in my messed-up brain: This is what life would be like for me now. Matty had no intention of pursuing whatever had happened between us. We couldn’t even talk about it or address it. So this is how it would always be. Me suffering, pining over him, while he was completely fucking oblivious to it. I would spend my entire life watching him fall in love with other people and I would never have anything more than his friendship.

It hurt.

Matty looked up then and suddenly realised I was standing there.

“Alright space cadet?” He smiled at me, clearly noticing my red eyes and the fact that I was swaying where I stood.

I watched as the smile disappeared off his face when I didn’t respond and he sensed that something was wrong. He said something to the brunette who nodded and disappeared off into the depths of the suite, leaving us standing in the corridor alone.

“Do you need assistance?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re completely fucked mate.”

“No, what’s fucked is the fact that I have waited almost three months for you to say something, anything,” I heard my voice, but I wasn’t even consciously aware that I had spoken.

Matty’s face fell.

“What do you want me to say?” He asked, voice careful.

“You know that we need to talk,” I said, vaguely aware that I was about to start crying at any second.

I knew by the look on his face that he was all too aware of what I was talking about.

“Georgie, you’ve had too much to drink. How about we go get you some water?” He reached out to grab a hold of my arm, but I pushed him away.

“We need to talk Matty,” I said.

“Now’s not the time mate,” There was a warning tone in his voice.

The brunette appeared again, two drinks in her hands. One for her and a glass of red wine that was signature Matty.

“Matty, please,” I said, voice cracking.

“No. There’s nothing to talk about George,” his words were clipped and harsh.

I watched as he turned his back, walked over to the brunette and took his drink. He didn’t even look back at me as he put his arm around her waist and left me standing there.

 _There’s nothing to talk about_.

The sentence reverberated around my skull like a bad joke.

_There’s nothing to talk about._

There’s nothing to talk about except everything.

Except fucking everything.

Something deep inside me fractured and suddenly I had to put as much space between me and Matty as I physically could.

I stormed through the penthouse. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I just needed to leave. My hands blindly tried various door handles until eventually I found an empty bedroom. It had a balcony. I walked outside, leaned over the railing and tried to force fresh air into my lungs. I was crying so hard by this stage I could barely breathe.

“FUCK!” I yelled the word, hoping that by vocalising it I could exorcise some of the pain I was feeling. Spoiler alert: it didn’t do a fucking thing.

I turned around and slid down, my back to the railing, until I was sitting on the ground. I was so caught up in my pain that I didn’t notice Adam had followed me (and witnessed the entire thing) until he cleared his throat softly. I looked up and saw him standing in the doorway.

“Are you alright?” He asked in that soft, meaningful way of his.

Concern laced his voice and the fact that he was worried about me just made me cry harder. Adam didn’t say a thing. He just hunched down in front of me and I let him wrap his scrawny arms around me and hold me as I desperately tried to get a handle on myself.

“What’s going on with you G?” He asked quietly.

“You haven’t been yourself for weeks. You know you can talk to me right? Whatever it is, it’ll all be okay. Look, maybe when we get home things will be better? It’s been such a tough slog being on the road for so long.”

He started rattling off a list of all the things to look forward to about being home, like getting to sleep in an actual bed, seeing our families, being able to do normal things. His words swam in my head and I felt dizzy until eventually the stress in my head peaked and I heard my voice say the words:

“I fucked up Hann. I fucked up. I’m in love with him.”

I immediately regretted it when Hann fell silent. He pulled back from the hug and looked at me, his eyes searching mine, waiting for me to elaborate.

“Mate?” He asked.

“Fuck,” I sobbed.

And then I watched as a wave of understanding slowly rippled across Hann’s features.

“Matty.”

He said it as a statement rather than a question.

“Matty,” I nodded sadly.

We sat in the cold for an hour and a half and I told him everything.

******


	9. Intermission 2

**Intermission 2**

_Before you go  
Turn the big light off_

It’s 2am and he’s been hovering outside your door for at least twenty minutes. You can hear the soft pad of his feet against the floorboards as he walks up and back, up and back, up and back… It’s as if he’s working up the courage to come in, even though he should know that you’re awake. You haven’t really been sleeping since you got back from tour. Neither of you have. In a cruel twist of fate, your brain got so used to sleeping on a bus, that now you can’t seem to nod off without the distinct feeling of being in perpetual motion.

The streetlight outside your bedroom window sends an ethereal light through your curtains, giving everything in your room a touch of being unreal. Still he paces outside, up and back, up and back, up and back… His footsteps keep time with your heart.

You never spoke after. You chickened out the next morning, after the incident in the penthouse. You just pretended that you were so drunk you couldn’t remember anything. And he had given you a look that suggested he didn’t believe you, but playing along with the lie was easier than the alternative. So you had given each other a dead arm and then hugged it out (your preferred method of apology since you became best friends). But Adam knew you were lying too and Adam gives you sad little looks now, all these weeks later, when you’re hanging out together because he knows. He knows how much it’s killing you. And it’s only getting worse.

And maybe the man pacing outside your bedroom door knows that too, but you’re too afraid to ask him. You realise that you have spent almost your entire friendship being too afraid to ask him.

_Before you go  
Turn the big light off  
  
_

A frustrated sigh outside the door breaks your trail of thought. He’s not in a good place – hasn’t been since you got home. He’s lost weight. He’s drinking more. He’s been quieter. He’s been having panic attacks so often that he’s eating Xanax tablets like they’re sweets. He repeats himself. His thoughts are scattered. He disappears for hours at a time and you don’t know where he goes. His lyrics have been… more brutal than usual. You’re deep in the writing process for the next album and you worry about him.

His nose has been bleeding more and you know he’s getting high from substances other than the anti-anxiety medication and the copious amounts of weed he smokes when you work. He’s not himself and everyone has seen it.

You’ve tried to speak to him about it a few times, but he always waves you away with a smile and lies: “I’m fine.” Even though you’ve known him long enough to know that when he says, “I’m fine” it’s usually because he’s so far beyond whatever _fine_ is that he can’t even remember what “fine” is supposed to feel like.

His mum has been calling you a lot lately too. She’s been asking you to get him to call her. He’s more forgetful than usual. He missed his brother’s birthday. He’s all over the place and only half-there when he does speak to her and she’s worried that he’s heading for a crash and _please Georgie, please, isn’t there something you can do? Would you talk to him? You’re the only one he ever listens to._

And you tell her that you’ve tried, but you’ll try again. Because you love him. And you’re worried. And she’s worried too. And if she’s worried, then you know you should be twice as worried.

You take a deep breath and flick the switch beside your bed, turning on the big light, silently letting him know that it’s okay. That no matter what has happened, you’re still here for him (you’ll always be here for him). You’re still ready to hold him tight and chase away whatever has a hold on his mind.

The pacing stops. And then the knock comes – timid, quiet, barely there.

He doesn’t wait for you to respond, he just pushes the door in slowly.

You sit up in your bed so you can look at him. He’s crying. His hair, which has grown long and curly and wild, is dishevelled. There’s a half-smoked cigarette burning between his fingers. His hands are shaking. Your heart breaks a little bit. He looks at your bed and the conversation between you is silent but brief:

_I need help._

_I know._

_Can I?_

_Come here._

You move over, making room for him and you lie back down. He puts out his smoke and crawls in beside you and he’s fucking freezing as he cuddles up against you. You wrap your arms around him and pull him as close to you as you physically can. The coldness of his touch leaves tiny trails of shivers in their wake as he wraps his hands around your waist. You take a deep breath in and sigh it out and he does the same. The tremble in his limbs gradually subsides.

His hair tickles your chin and it almost makes you smile, but any crumb of happiness that you feel in that moment is short-lived when you remember that while he will always be your friend, he will never love you in the same way that you love him. You feel the familiar ache in your heart, the one that’s been following you around ceaselessly since tour, and it’s like he can sense the energetic frequency of it because he moves in your arm so he can look up at your face and he’s beautiful. Even with his tired eyes and tired features, he’s beautiful.

He’s beautiful.

His eyes search yours for something and you feel a familiar charge building in the atmosphere around you. Your senses heighten. You hear a lone car driving down the road outside your house. You feel your pulse jumping in your neck. It’s dangerous, so you try to look away from him, but he reaches up a hand to your cheek and he stops you from moving.

You try to look at anything else other than him, but he speaks then:

“George, look at me.”

His voice is low, deep, slightly hoarse. Filled with something.

And slowly you meet his gaze and you know your eyes are starting to fill with tears but you can’t stop it.

You can’t stop it.

You close your eyes.

He leans forwards and kisses you. First a peck, so quick you don’t know if it’s actually happened and you’re about to blink your eyes open when he does it again. And this time he kisses you properly. He kisses you in a way that makes your head dizzy – lips, tongue – and it’s all you want. But your heart cracks because it doesn’t feel right.

It doesn’t feel right.

You force yourself to pull back and you say: “I can’t. I can’t.”

But his hand is on the back of your neck now and his eyes are captivating and he says: “It’s okay, you can. Please George, please,” and he brings your mouths together again and there’s a softness to the next kiss and you try to make your brain shut the fuck up, but your heart says no.

Your heart says not like this.

Your heart says no.

And you pull back again.

He looks at you, his eyes so sad and pained, and you breathe out an apology, but it’s too late. He untangles himself from you, immediately shifting gears and you can feel the wall go up around him. A defence mechanism he’s been using since he was a kid. He’s blocking you out.

He gets out of bed and your heart sinks.

_Before you go  
(Please don’t go)  
Turn the big light off_

You watch him as he crosses the room and opens your bedroom door. Before he leaves, he pauses – his shoulders visibly tightened – and you think he might turn around and say something, but he doesn’t. Instead his fingers find the other switch by your door and he turns the light off.

He exits the room and you’re left sitting there in the dark with your mixed-up heart. You want him. But he doesn’t want you. He wants you when he’s upset. When things are hard. But he doesn’t want you in the way that you want him. He doesn’t crave you in the way that you crave him.

He doesn’t see you in the way that you see him.

The pain is so tangible, it hurts when you breathe. Another chip comes loose in your heart and you know that the cracks are only getting worse.

_Before you go  
_ _(Please don’t go)  
_ _Turn the big light out_

It’s only getting worse.

******


	10. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: We're back to the present in this chapter and George is trying to come to terms with seeing Matty again. FEELS. This chapter follows on directly from the initial Prologue (if you'd like to reread to remember what happened). Thank you for all your lovely words and kudos. They're inspiring me to write like a maniac. I'm so excited for you all to see what's to come <3

**Chapter 7**

Everything smells like coffee. A child cries somewhere behind me. The sound of mugs clinking together.

Snap back to the present moment: London. Café. Chilly, grey afternoon. Matty and I sat opposite each other.

My angry words hung in the air. Matty shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Silence fell between us. He changed the subject.

“I can’t believe I used to work in this shit hole,” he said, looking around. He turned in his seat and pointed to a corner, just to the left of the small little stage.

“I cleaned sick up over there so many times, Jesus fucking Christ.”

He turned back around to face me and then went to run a hand through his hair. His hand stopped, hesitating, like he was expecting more hair than his fingertips found.

He saw me looking at him and said: “I cut it all off recently. I’m not used to it – I still think I have a Mohawk.”

I knew that Matty’s hair was deeply tied in to how he felt about himself. I knew him well enough to know that by shaving it all off, he was trying to get a fresh start. You could almost tell the state of his mood (and his life in general) by looking at how his hair was styled.

The café bustled around us and I felt like Matty and I stuck out like a sore thumb. We didn’t really ascribe to the rest of the clientele, which seemed to be made up of edgy-looking college students tapping away on laptops and stressed-out hipster parents, trying to grab a quick caffeine fix while they wrangled various children around them. I spotted a guy across the room looking at us as if he recognised us. He caught my eye, gave me a nod and then went back to his coffee. I felt deeply uncomfortable. I hunched over my own coffee, trying to make myself look small and less noticeable.

Matty took out his phone, glanced at the screen and then put it back in his pocket. He took a drink of coffee, then added milk despite the fact he had ordered it black. He fidgeted with the heavy chain-link necklace he was wearing. He couldn’t sit still. He was nervous.

I knew he was stalling the inevitable conversation that we needed to have. He had never been good at confrontation. I was still pissed off at him, my anger simmering under my skin. I was pissed off at how… fucking Matty he was being. We hadn’t spoken in a long time and I was angered by the fact that he thought he could just show up and act like nothing had happened. That he could just sit there in front of me and talk about his hair and check his phone.

Like he could continue the dance that honestly tortured me for years.

I studied his face. He looked scared and a bit lost. Exactly like that night in his van, an entire lifetime ago, when he was crying and I had reached out to him. Much to my dismay, I felt my heart stirring in my chest like it always did when I thought about him. Even still. My anger faltered as I looked at him and then dissipated like a candle flame being blown out.

I let out a long sigh and because a part of me still had this desperate need to protect him (a need that almost an entire year of weekly therapy sessions _still_ couldn’t shift) I offered him a brief moment of respite:

“Do you remember when Tony tried to book us to play here the first time after you quit?”

He smiled then.

“He told me to go fuck myself when I demanded a rider.”

“He’d turn in his grave if he saw what this place had become,” I said.

We looked around us. It was a bustling, trendy coffee shop now with an open mic night every Friday and fancy, over-priced bags of beans for sale behind the counter. In our day, it had been a dodgy dive bar – Tony’s – where no one ever asked you for ID. Matty used to work here once upon a time. I could still remember our first proper encounter outside school when he had quit and had slammed his phone into the ground post-screaming match with Tony. Funnily enough, Tony’s had eventually become a regular gigging spot for us when Tony realised we were capable of drawing a crowd. One night, post sell-out gig, Tony and Matty had buried the hatchet by opening a bottle of tequila and getting absolutely rat-arsed drunk together.

A memory came to my mind suddenly. Flashback of a particularly drunken night: Matty and I lying on the floor of the men’s toilet laughing together as I wrote the words: _Hann is a wanker_ behind the toilet. Ross coming in and passing out on top of us.

My heart gave a sad, familiar ache in my chest. This place was flooded with memories. Even though it had changed considerably, I could look around and still see Matty everywhere. The old booth in the corner where we had all gotten trashed so many times. The dodgy pipe that ran up the back wall that Matty was convinced he could climb when he was drunk (he always ended up falling and landing on his backside). The weird uneven step down to the toilets that Matty and I had both fallen down one night and the two of us had to get stitches. The dodgy window in the bathroom that never opened fully, so we had to press our faces up against it to share a cheeky spliff before we went on stage.

It felt strange now. I felt both young and old at the same time. Everything in my life had been so fucking transitory in nature – hotel rooms, my day-to-day experience of waking up in different cities, different countries, my relationships that never felt permanent. And yet this felt solid. This felt constant. We always ended up together. No matter what happened. It always boiled down to this: Me and him, sitting across a table. My eyes meeting his. The weight of something so strong but so hard to speak between us.

It was still so fucking hard to navigate and I was tired. I was so _fucking_ tired.

“I saw Louis on the telly,” I said then, just to try and lighten the mood so I didn’t drown. I remembered how I dropped a plate in my kitchen because his voice was so like Matty’s it had given me a fright.

“Yeah, he’s in a soap now, can you believe that? Girls are obsessed with him on Instagram,” Matty rolled his eyes.

“He’s doing okay?” I asked.

“He’s loving it. Would you believe the last time we went out together he got recognised and I didn’t? Some bird shoved her phone in my hand and asked me to take a selfie of them,” He shook his head.

I smiled at the thoughts of Matty getting slated in favour of his younger brother. That must have hurt his ego considerably.

“And your mum?”

“She’s remarried now. And she’s reinvented herself as an author,” he said, smiling at the surprised look on my face.

“She got help for her depression and wrote an entire book about it. Now she helps other people… she asks about you all the time.”

I gave him a small, sad smile. Denise and I had always had a soft spot for each other. Over the years, I would regularly wander up from band practice sessions in the basement at Matty’s and end up in the kitchen with her, drinking wine and listening to her troubles about her problematic older child. She worried about him so much. So did I.

She had messaged me a few times since Matty and I had stopped speaking, asking me to understand that he was going through a rough patch and I just had to have patience. Matty seemed to require the endless patience of everyone who loved him.

“Do you remember – ” He started but I interrupted him.

“The night Ross took some dodgy ecstasy and ended up getting on stage and stripping naked while doing a flawless rendition of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’? Yes, yes I do. That’s something you never, ever forget. I’m pretty sure the vision has been burned into my memory,” I said and Matty laughed.

“Man, this place…” His laughter subsided and he trailed off. A sad look passed over his face.

I noticed the frown lines between his eyes had deepened since the last time I saw him. He looked his age in that moment and I felt a deep stab of nostalgia. I suddenly wished that we could just go back in time and be teenagers again.

“I feel old mate,” He said quietly, as if he was reading my thoughts.

“Me too.”

“When did we get this old? How the _fuck_ are we in our thirties?” He frowned.

I just shrugged because I didn’t have an answer.

“It all went in the blink of an eye and I still feel like I’m fucking 18 on the inside, with no clue what I’m doing. I always thought…” he started and then shook his head, stopping himself.

I noticed he was wearing a fidget ring on his right hand. I guess the anxiety was still there. I felt my heart softening to him more and I sighed, frustrated at myself. It was so hard trying to stay mad at him, but I needed to. I needed to remember the pain. I needed the pain for this conversation because without it I knew I’d just give in to Matty. I’d fold like a deck of cards, like I always did, and I couldn’t do it this time. I couldn’t do it again. I was an adult now. Matty had fucking destroyed me and I couldn’t go back there. I was trying to heal. I was trying so hard to move on.

“I know you’re pissed off,” he said then, sensing my inner conflict. Of course he could sense it. Even still he knew me better than I knew myself.

“And I’m really glad you wanted to meet be because… fuck, Georgie,” He voice cracked.

He looked up at me and my heart twisted.

He went to say something else, but his eyes filled with tears. He looked as tortured as I felt.

I ran a hand through my hair and despite my resolve, despite my pain, I reach out to him. He looked up at me as I put my hand on his wrist.

I was forever trying to spare Matty pain, even if it meant hurting myself in the process. I was aware that it was so fucking unhealthy and I knew my therapist, Will, was going to freak out when I inevitably cried about this in our next session together, but I just… I just couldn’t stop myself. I had to help him. I always helped Matty. It was literally one of my defining personality traits at this stage.

Hi, my name is George and I have raging co-dependent tendencies.

“This conversation is too heavy for a place like this and I don’t want to ruin the happy memories that we have here, okay? How about we move somewhere else and we talk about this properly?” I said and he nodded, visibly relieved.

We finished our coffees in silence.

As we left the café, I noticed two women across the street raising their phones and taking pictures of us. Great. We would be all over Instagram and Reddit within the next 15 minutes and the fans would go fucking crazy because we hadn’t been spotted together in public in over a year.

They had been asking questions, the fans. Questions which we had all managed to brush off or play down thus far, but I knew that they knew something wasn’t right.

Our new album, _Notes on a Conditional Form_ (or ‘NOCAF’ as we lovingly referred to it while it was being made) came out earlier this year. It sounded good despite the fact that Matty and I hadn’t been speaking when it was made. We couldn’t stomach being in the same room as each other so it was decided that if we were going to do this, the only way was to work on it separately. We split studio time carefully, always ensuring that our paths never crossed.

We would both separately work on melodies, eventually merging everything together with the help of Ross and Hann. I would fine-tune things. Then Matty would lay down vocals. I would work on it again. He would tweak it with Ross. Hann would hold my hand when I listened to the full track (complete with vocals) for the first time and inevitably start crying as soon as I heard Matty’s voice and we would go back and forth and back and forth until it was complete.

It wasn’t the speediest way of working and due to this the date of release had to be pushed back several times, but it was out in the world now and had been generally well-received.

I still couldn’t fucking listen to the entire thing from start to finish. Every time Matty would send in vocals, I’d have to mentally prepare myself and focus on one song at a time. I knew listening to the album in its entirety would be a bad vibe for me, so I just couldn’t fucking do it.

Flashback of Hann and I in the studio when I heard the vocals to ‘I Think There’s Something You Should Know’ for the first time and I had cried like a baby because it reminded me of the house Matty and I had once shared and all the nights we had spent together cuddled up in his bed or mine.

The Covid-19 pandemic had scuppered the launch. It hit right as we released. I was grateful that we hadn’t gotten a chance to tour it yet because I had no idea how that would have worked.

“You seem taller since I saw you last,” Matty said then. We were walking down the street together, easily falling into step beside each other, like our bodies remembered how comfortable we used to be in each other’s company.

“Maybe you’ve just started to shrink in your old age,” I said.

“Cheeky,” he gave me a small smile.

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out to check the screen. A text from Hann:

> **Adam:** Hope it’s going okay mate. I promise that he’s trying but don’t let him manipulate you. Remember what we talked about: you’ve got to look after yourself too, yeah?

I looked at Matty. He was absentmindedly looking into shop windows as we passed.

He looked healthier. He had more weight on him, but it was healthy weight – more muscle than fat. He wasn’t as pale. He hadn’t had a smoke since I met him. As soon as I had that thought I felt the craving for nicotine rise up inside me. I fished a packet of smokes out of my coat pocket.

“You want one?” I asked and he nodded quickly.

“Fuck yes. _Christ._ I’m _gagging_ for one. I was trying not to because I wasn’t sure if you still smoked. Ross said you became a Buddhist or something.”

I laughed at that and then without realising what I was doing, I did something I hadn’t done in years: I took two cigarettes out of the box, put them in my mouth, lit them and handed one to Matty. A gesture I had done a million times in my life. It was so natural to me it was like breathing.

His fingers grazed mine as he took the smoke from me and I got the distinct impression that while nothing had changed, everything had also changed.

I watched him as he took a deep drag, eyes closed. He stopped walking, savouring it, and then exhaled with a low ‘Aaah’ noise. He was beautiful. He opened his eyes and caught me watching him.

“I was planning on sneaking into the bathroom at our next stop and literally eating a cigarette if you didn’t smoke on this walk,” he said.

I couldn’t help but smile at that because it was exactly the stupid kind of shit he’d do and all. But no. I needed to focus. Matty was being Matty. He was charming me, like he did with everyone around him. I willed my pain to surface. I willed myself to remember the full extent of the damage that had been done.

Images flashed through my mind: Skin on skin, Matty illuminated from behind like a stained-glass saint on the balcony of some hotel, the chill in my bones from the rain, the kiss of the bathroom tiles as they rose up to meet my knees… the pain, the pain, the pain. Serious as a heart attack. Hann’s worried face. Ross pushing me into the shower fully clothed to try and sober me up. The eighth unanswered phone call.

I couldn’t forget it. I _needed_ to remember it. I needed the pain to keep me clear. I had spent my entire life being a doormat to him, letting him hurt me. I couldn’t let him back in. If I did, I’d be fucking done for.

This wasn’t about keeping Matty pain-free now, it was about survival.

“George?”

His voice brought me back to my surroundings as the images faded from my mind.

“Hmm?”

We had stopped walking.

“A-are you okay?” His voice was small and unsure.

I thought about lying. I thought about giving a generic answer and brushing him off, but then I remembered Dr Will’s words from our therapy session earlier in the week: “The only way you’ll feel happier is if you stop putting other people’s comfort before your own feelings George,” so I took a deep breath and opted for honesty.

For the first time in my life, I opted for the harsh, brutal truth:

“Matty I haven’t been okay since I met you.”

******


	11. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hi loves, I have a double-update for you today! Matty and George's relationship starts to deteriorate even further before things get a little... hot in the next chapter. Ahem.
> 
> I do hope you enjoy. Thanks as always for all your kind words and kudos and comments <3

**Chapter 8**

Matty captivated me. He was in the sound booth of the studio, eyes closed and singing his heart out – body moving with the music. His brows were slightly furrowed as he anticipated the crescendo. It swelled and he rode it with his voice and then, at the peak, a beautiful, gritty intonation as his voice cracked slightly and we lapsed from forte to piano. It was completely unintentional and _so fucking perfect._

He wasn’t doing any of this on purpose – he was just flowing with the music, allowing it to guide him. It all came so intuitively to him. I was forever in awe of how naturally gifted he was.

I pulled my eyes away from him and went back to the soundboard in front of me, making a few slight adjustments and jotting down my notes as the music faded. When I looked up, he was smiling at me and it was actually genuine. A smile that I hadn’t seen in months – not since I had turned him down that night when he was pacing outside my bedroom door post-tour. It was a real smile.

I couldn’t help but smile back, laughing to myself as he bobbed his head excitedly and came out.

I stood up to greet him.

“That was…” he began, coming back into the control room.

“Fucking perfection!” I finished with a dramatic flourish I knew he’d appreciate.

He grabbed me into an excited hug which caught me completely off guard mainly because we didn’t really touch these days. There was no arm slung over my shoulders carelessly in interviews anymore. No photoshoots where we’d hug each other close. No references to me being his “husband.” Everything between us was careful. Exact. Thought out.

I closed my eyes and savoured the thin line of him pressed against my chest, silently fighting the urge to inhale the scent of his hair.

Moments passed and then, as if on cue, we both suddenly became self-conscious and broke away from each other. My heart gave a sad little ache in the centre of my chest.

I busied myself by sitting down and playing back Matty’s recording and he sat down in the spare chair to my left nodding his head in time with the beat. He was immediately engrossed in the music, forgetting everything else. When it came to music, Matty’s focus was obsessive. I watched as the façade he had crafted over the past few months slowly began to eclipse his face again. The façade which blocked out the real Matty and replaced him with the fake one. The fake Matty that was making more and more of an appearance lately.

Matty was not okay.

I was not okay.

“Can you pass me some headphones? I want to listen to this more in-depth,” he said.

I grabbed a set and offered them to him. As he leaned forward and grabbed them, I noticed that his hand was shaking. He saw me clock the frenetic trembles and his eyes met mine. A silent conversation passed between us:

_You okay?_

_I’m fine._

_You’re not fine._

_It’s nothing._

I let the subject drop, knowing that I wouldn’t get anywhere with him.

Matty was not okay. He was struggling and I knew he was. He had been struggling for months, gradually closing himself off and sealing himself away behind a wall of his own making.

I was still hopelessly in love with him, but ever since that night, ages ago, when he had shown up in my room and tried to push things further with us (and I had said no), it was like a door had closed somewhere inside him. I no longer had the same access to him that I used to have. He had stopped seeking me out when he was distressed. I wasn’t sure if the Xanax he was taking was actually starting to have the desired effect (doubtful) or if he was taking so fucking much of it, he couldn’t feel much of anything anymore.

I was worried about him, but every time I tried to have a real conversation with him I got his usual fake smile and an “I’m fine” that really didn’t do anything to assuage the sinking feeling in my stomach. More and more it felt like while Matty was standing in front of me (and even talking to me) he was present in body only. There was a noticeable chasm between the two of us.

I was not okay.

Being in the studio was the only time that Matty was himself these days.

“I think if we just up the bass, this is good mate. Better than good,” he said, taking off the headphones and setting them down.

“Excellent morning’s work love. Headed home?” I asked, trying to disguise the mass amounts of pain the question caused me.

Matty had moved out of the house we shared four months ago. He had said he needed “space” and he was “trying to be a grown up.”

I had tried to be supportive of his decision, but after he had officially moved out, I physically couldn’t get out of bed for three days. I fucking _hated_ that he was no longer there and I felt like I was haunting the place. I was the ghost of my former self. I spent my nights roaming through the house, aimlessly, remembering Matty at every turn. My brain torturing me with memories of our shared life together. Two nights ago, I had broken down in the kitchen when I saw the stain on the ceiling left behind by Matty trying to flip a pancake while he was hungover one Saturday morning many, many moons ago. It was hell. I still couldn’t go into his old room.

I was not okay.

“Nah, Jamie’s booked me some photo shoot for a magazine. They’re going for moody, so I’m off to stand in a fucking derelict building and have my picture taken for the next three hours. _Christ,_ I hope the rain stops,” he sighed.

He started humming one of our own songs as he got up and began gathering his things together. I recognised the tune immediately. It was ‘Change of Heart.’

 _You used to have a face straight out of a magazine, now you just look like anyone_.

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

As our fame had exploded, Matty was more in demand now than ever before. He was sitting front row at ridiculous fashion shows, doing solo cover shoots for trendy magazines. He was being romantically linked to different celebrities every fucking week by the tabloids (and every week I would cry about it) and he felt like a separate entity to the rest of us. We (me, Hann and Ross) were The 1975 but Matty was “Matty.”

The authenticity of his performances had been eclipsed by his rock star persona. He had become a brand in and of himself and it was getting harder and harder to see where the real person ended and the brand, this fake Matty, began. Matty’s raw authenticity was one of the things I admired most about him, but lately it just wasn’t there. Whether it was a method of self-protection or what I wasn’t sure. All I knew was I missed him. I fucking missed him.

“Well, try enjoy it if you can. Maybe they’ll have nice catering,” I said, standing up and stretching. I leaned against the wall and took a swig of my fourth coffee of the day. I glanced at the clock on my phone screen. It was 2pm and I still felt like death. Hangovers on the opposite side of your twenties are no joke.

“Hair of the dog might be a good bet for you Georgie,” Matty said, nodding at my cup of coffee.

I glanced over at him. He turned his back to me as he pulled a ridiculous black, furry coat on. He had always been scrawny, but lately he seemed to be shrinking away right before my eyes. He was cold a lot these days and no matter how much sleep he got, he always looked absolutely knackered.

“You need a cure,” he said.

I looked at his back sadly. I wasn’t sure a cure existed for this.

I had now been in love with Matty for so long it felt terminal. I had tried experimental treatment (namely I had tried to shag him out of my system and smoke him out of my system) but neither of those things had worked, so now I was trying to drink him out of my system. So far this new method of treatment was proving inconclusive and mainly just involved me drowning my sorrows, like last night.

Flashback to the previous night’s events: Me, collapsed on my bedroom floor, swigging whiskey straight from the bottle and crying at Adam, who had pretty much become my agony aunt ever since I told him about my feelings for Matty all those months ago.

“G why don’t you just tell him how you feel? It’s fucking destroying you mate. I hate seeing you like this,” Adam’s voice had been all concern and worry. He was a good mate.

“I can’t. I just can’t,” I had sobbed.

“Why?”

“Because you know what he’s like and if I tell him, this entire thing, the band, everything gets fucked up. I can’t risk it. He will never see me the way I want him to see me.”

Adam had gotten down on the ground beside me then and had taken the bottle off me so he could have a generous swig of whiskey himself.

“I hate this so much. I feel like I’m dying,” I had whispered, voice raw with emotion, and Adam had nodded and sat with me until I had gotten so drunk I just passed out.

When I had woken up this morning, I was in my bed and Adam, saint that he was, had left a glass of water (and a basin in case I puked) by my bed.

I was not okay.

“Right Georgie, see you tomorrow,” Matty flashed me the peace sign as he left, bag slung around him and shades pulled over his eyes despite the fact that it was raining outside. Rock star persona.

The room fell silent as he pulled the door shut behind him, sealing me back up in the sound-proofed hush of the studio. I sighed and flopped myself down into a chair. I swivelled myself round and round a few times, trying to shake off the sense of general existential dread I had been feeling a lot lately.

We were working on our next album. Our second album, _I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It_ (or _ILIWYS_ for short) had been an incredible success. While we had been working on it, we knew it would be great but we didn’t realise just how great it would become. Our songs were now getting constant airtime on radio and TV, we were winning awards, brands were sending us free shit and if we thought we were doing well before, it was a completely different ball game now. It was incredible and anxiety-inducing at the same time.

Another tour had followed the release of _ILIWYS_ and now we were back in studio mode and working on the bones of album number three, which we had effectively dubbed _Music For Cars_ , although _ILIWYS_ had given Matty a taste for dramatic album names and _Music For Cars_ or “MFC” as we kept calling it, sounded a little… flat. Everyone also kept asking us if we were referring to a football club, so there was that.

I spun myself around on the chair a few more times, trying to decide what to spend my afternoon working on. The studio was free for the rest of the day and I felt anxious and knew that if I went home, I’d just be on a bad vibe. I took my feet off the ground and allowed the chair to come to a natural stop and my eyes landed on the coffee table. Matty’s notebook was sitting there. He had forgotten it.

Matty’s notebook was sacrosanct and constantly on his person. It was where he wrote down all his ideas – lyrics, creative directions, music video treatments, everything. He was never, ever without it and none of us were allowed to even _breathe_ in its direction. I imagined him freaking the fuck out when he realised he had lost it somewhere and I got up and grabbed it, walking out to the hall even though I knew he was long gone by now.

I went back into the studio to grab my phone and text him, but something stopped me. I stared at the black Moleskine in my hands like it contained the meaning of life (and who knows, maybe it did). Matty never let anyone see inside its pages. It suddenly felt very heavy in my hands.

I knew it was wrong, but the temptation to look inside was intense. I was so starved of ‘Real Matty’ interaction I just wanted to be close to him in whatever way I could be. Even if it meant snooping through his private thoughts and ideas.

I held my breath as I carefully slid the elastic closure to the side and opened the notebook. It looked like… one of those crazy murder walls that serial killers always have in films, except in notebook format.

I frowned. It was just a jumbled mess of words, sketches, references and quotes (and what appeared to be random shopping lists?) but I knew there was method in Matty’s madness and all of it formed some kind of cohesive whole to him, even if I had no fucking idea what it meant.

I sat down and flicked through some recent pages. There was a sketch of a t-shirt with _MFC_ written across the body, a detailed picture of some kind of hat with rabbit ears poking out the top of it, snippets of lyrics that read more like a conversation between Matty and himself. A page that had the words: **MATTY, BUY SOME FUCKING FAGS ASAP** written on it that made me laugh out loud (so he was still forgetful then, that was comforting at least) and then something beautiful and so him:

_You win, you lose, you sing the blues  
There’s no point in buying concrete shoes   
_ _(I refuse)._

The words settled onto me. They were simple words but so deeply poetic because they were so fucking resonant.

I flipped through more pages and stopped when I came across two pages filled with the same sentence written over and over and over again. I brought the notebook to my face so I could take a closer look at the words. He had been leaning so heavily on his pen when he wrote this that the pages had actually ripped beneath the nib in some parts.

The words streamed across the pages, running into each other, crossing over each other. It looked like a breakdown in print:

_So what about these feelings I’ve got? SO WHAT ABOUT THESE FEELINGS I’VE GOT? Sowhataboutthesefeelingsivegotwhataboutthesefeelingsivegot?  
_ _SO WHAT ABOUT THESE FEELINGS I’VE GOT?  
_ _So what about  
_ _these feelings  
_ _I’ve got?_

A heavy sadness landed on me. I was not okay.

Matty was not okay.

******

I was, for all intents and purposes, completely fucking out of it.

I was sitting on the sink in the men’s bathroom and the world had now become a slow motion blur of colours and sounds. Everything was bleeding into everything else. I had drank so much alcohol, I could barely keep myself upright. I had no idea how much alcohol was actually in my system. I frowned as I felt water from the sink seeping through my trousers, but despite the unpleasant sensation, I didn’t move.

“G? come on, drink this.”

A pint of water was shoved into my hand by an exasperated Hann and I tried to give it back to him immediately.

“Nooo,” I whined like a toddler, but Hann was having none of it.

“George, I mean it. You’ll thank me for it tomorrow.”

He grabbed my hand so I couldn’t let go of the glass.

The door opened and someone else came in.

“I think I’m going to take this one home. If he drinks any more tonight he’s going to end up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning,” I could hear Adam talking.

“Alright Georgie? You haven’t gotten this fucked up since you were what? Seventeen? This has got to be a sad new record,” Ross’s voice now. His words were excitable and running into each other. He was well on his way to being wankered as well.

I suddenly remembered another one of Noah’s epic house parties when we were younger where we had to throw Ross into the shower fully clothed because he was still so fucking drunk the next morning and we needed to sober him up before he was supposed to be in work.

At one point Ross had worked in a café on the high street in Manchester. He was a pretty good barista to be fair to him. You know who else had worked in said café? Matty. Matty kept breaking cups and cursing loudly whenever he scalded his hand with hot water. He was too chaotic (and usually too stoned) for customer service so in the end he had been demoted from barista to bussing tables.

“I want Matty,” I heard myself slurring.

“Jesus Christ. No George, I think putting you and emo lord in the same room when you’re like this is probably the worst fucking idea of all time,” said Adam.

He reached out and used his hand to push the bottom of the pint glass up to my lips.

“Drink.”

“You dehydrated bitch,” Ross was laughing. “What good is Matty in this situation? He’ll probably just make you do a load of coke and then you’ll be even worse off George. Everyone knows Adam is your best bet in a crisis.”

Adam sighed loudly.

“It makes me sad that I’m still looking after you idiots,” he said, smiling when Ross grabbed him into a big bear hug.

“But we love you mate,” Ross ruffled his hair.

I suddenly remembered that I too loved Adam. I slipped off the sink and tackled them both into a hug.

“I love you! Like I love you guys so fucking much,” I was practically shouting at them.

I was aware I was getting emotional – a by-product of the mass amounts of alcohol I had consumed.

We were in a very trendy nightclub in London, post an awards ceremony. Our attendance at the awards had been purely a gesture – we hadn’t been nominated for anything – but it was the kind of event that it was good to be seen at. Jamie had pretty much told us that we had to go because it would keep us “relevant” while we were in the studio working on the new album.

The awards themselves had been dull as fuck and I had entertained myself by getting high in the bathroom with Ross and Adam and drinking as much free champagne as I could.

I was very much drinking to forget this evening. Why? Matty had brought a date with him and it was eating me up inside. I didn’t even know her name. She was some blonde model who looked like every other model in the world that I had ever seen. I had sat at the table and watched as she necked the champagne, pulled him in for sloppy kisses and kept not-so-subtly dropping her hand under the table.

The thing that really fucked me off though was when he was posing for the photographers on the way in and pulled up his shirt in a suggestive manner. I had seen the love bite just at the top of his hip as the cameras flashed. I knew at that point of the evening that I needed to not remember anything. So I had knocked back as much champagne as I could and once we hit the club, I swapped the champagne for liquor. What was the saying? Wine is fine, but liquor is quicker.

Matty had disappeared as soon as we got into the club and I imagine that he was now probably getting head in a dark alcove somewhere or he had already left with the model for a night of wild, passionate sex. My heart was breaking in my chest. With every inhale I could feel bits of it just splintering away. It was a sad fact that the alcohol was having zero effect on this. It was beyond numbing.

“I’m going to go find Jamie and tell him I’m taking George home. Will you keep an eye on him? And for fuck’s sake, just don’t let him go looking for Matty alright?” Adam said.

“Why not?” Ross asked.

I was grateful that Adam hadn’t spilled my pathetic little secret to anyone else. I didn’t even want to know how Ross would react if he found out.

Adam pinched the top of his nose and closed his eyes for a heartbeat.

“Just… just trust me. We do not need that kind of drama tonight,” he said.

He made Ross swear on the lives of his family and all of us before he left the bathroom. As soon as Adam was gone for about five minutes, Ross clapped me on the back, said he was going to get more booze and disappeared, leaving me alone.

I just stood there, not really knowing what to do with myself.

After a few minutes, the door opened and someone very famous came in. I instantly recognised him – he was in a major boyband. He went into a cubical and I heard him not-so-discreetly line up some racket. He nodded at me as he slipped out of the cubical a few minutes later, chewing his jaw and disappeared back out into the roar of the night club.

I suddenly felt exhausted so I climbed back onto the sink and sat there nursing my pint of water. Adam was right as usual. I needed to go home.

The alcohol had numbed my reactions so when the door flung open again and Matty came bursting through it, I didn’t say anything. He slammed the door behind him and leaned against it, eyes closed, taking a deep breath. It took him a second to sense that I was sitting there.

“Evening Georgie,” he said softly, eyes still closed.

It was one of our gifts, being able to sense each other. It was like we could just feel each other’s auras or something.

He was beautiful all of the time, but tonight he was exquisite. He was wearing leather trousers, a billowing shirt that spilled lace over his hands and a smart-cut black jacket which you could just tell was designer and very expensive. Eyeliner ringed his eyes and his hair was perfectly dishevelled. Matty looked like something that had just been cast out of heaven. He looked seductive. Fucking magnetic. More magnetic than usual.

I wanted to close the distance between us, push him up against the back of the door and press my lip against his, solely just to silence the part of me that continually screamed his name inside me like a song. The part of me that always fucking wanted him.

“A little worse for wear are we?” He asked, opening his eyes and taking in my unkempt appearance.

“Where’s your date?” I blurted out before I could stop myself, watching as he pushed himself away from the door.

“She was getting a little too… possessive,” he said and rolled his eyes dramatically.

He wasn’t as drunk as me but I could tell he definitely wasn’t sober either. He was more relaxed. His façade was still there a little bit, but I caught a glimpse of _my_ Matty, the Matty beneath the mask, as he slipped a hand into the inside jacket of his pocket and pulled out a spliff.

“Smoke?” he asked and I nodded.

He walked over to where I was sitting and I frowned as he put both his hands on my knees and pushed my legs apart.

“Relax Georgie, I’m opening the window,” he said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world as he leaned in and reached behind me to open the small window over the sink.

I swallowed. Was he toying with me?

He moved back and lit the spliff, taking a deep drag, and then he offered it to me. I leaned forward and took a drag as he held it. Our eyes locked.

I sat back, trying to keep my breathing steady as I exhaled. Matty was so close to me I could smell his aftershave. My eyes drank him in. He was beautiful. I studied him, trying to understand what was happening here, why he was so close, because even in my drunk state I was aware that a significant dynamic was playing out between us.

My eyes landed on his lips.

They were full and he had some kind of stain on them, making them look swollen. They almost looked bruised. I wanted nothing more than to just kiss him. It was all I fucking wanted. And I think he could sense the _need_ that was emanating from me because he asked a dangerous question then:

“Why have you been staring at me all night?”

My eyes flashed back up to his at that and I’m sure my expression revealed me. We spoke in the language of our bodies:

_You know why._

_Say it._

_I can’t._

I forced myself to look at anything else aside from him because I was aware I was starting to drown. And I was too drunk for this right now. It was unfair of him to toy with me when my self-control was hanging on by a thread.

Matty leaned forward then and brought a hand to my chin. He pulled my face towards his, forcing me to look at him. His confidence was unnerving me. His eyes studied my features. He moved closer and my heart leapt. Everything else faded away. The noise outside the bathroom dulled. It was just him and me, and nothing else mattered. I closed my eyes, readying myself for the kiss but it never came.

Instead, he paused by my ear and whispered two words:

“I. Can’t.”

He pulled back just as the door opened and Adam returned.

“Mate?” Adam asked, confused, as Matty pushed past him and left without a word.

When Adam came over and slung an arm around me to help me up, I was trembling.

I woke up the next morning with a slamming head and had to run to the bathroom to be sick. Sitting on the cool tiled floor, I was desperately trying to piece together the events of the previous night.

I remembered the awards. I remembered Ross losing his fucking mind because he saw Ariana Grande. I remembered shots in the club and Adam… Adam trying to sober me up in the bathroom and…

My stomach dropped.

And Matty. I remembered Matty.

Matty leaning in. Matty’s perfect lips against my ear and his words: “I. Can’t.”

What did that even mean? And then it dawned on me: he was using my own words against me.

My hangover-addled brain unlocked a memory: Our house in London a few months ago. Hearing him pacing outside my bedroom door. Big light switched on. Early hours of the morning. Matty’s hand on my face and me pulling back, uttering those stupid words: _I can’t. I can’t_. And Matty’s response: _Please George, please._

And he had been willing, but he wasn’t in his right mind. And my heart had said not like this.

Not like this.

I sat there stunned, feeling like all the air had been knocked out of my lungs.

Last night, he had been mocking me.

_I can’t. I can’t._

I. Can’t.

******

Weeks passed. Matty’s behaviour became… problematic. He was going out pretty much every single night. He was late for sound checks, studio time and interviews. Sometimes he just didn’t even bother to show up.

He was stoned constantly. He usually had a bottle of red wine in his hand or in his bag. He wasn’t eating. He was losing weight. He was looking more and more dishevelled. Sometimes his speech was slurred. He was falling asleep mid-conversation. We were worried. We had all tried to talk to him individually and as a group and each time, he would just get mad, start a fight, repeat the lie of “I’m fine” and then storm off dramatically.

He was constantly jumpy and shaky. I could _feel_ the hum of anxiety radiating off him and I wasn’t sure about the others, but I was so finely tuned to Matty’s moods that I could sense the black cloud of depression inching over him more and more every day.

It hurt my heart to see Matty like this and though I never said it (partly because I was too afraid to, as if speaking it would conjure it into being), there was a part of me that knew the wheels were about to come off the bus. Something had to give. And intuitively I could feel that the centre wouldn’t hold here for much longer.

I was not okay.

Matty was not okay.

******


	12. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is my first time writing ANY kind of full-on scene like this, so I'm just going to go and hide. This is pure filth. So sorry in advance. 
> 
> (But also not sorry, because George is in LOVE!)

**Chapter 9**

10:30pm.

It started with a text.

I roused myself and leaned across the sofa to pick up my phone, freezing when I saw Matty’s name on my screen:

> **Matty:** You at home?

I frowned and stupidly looked around my living room. Yes, I was at home. It was 10:30pm on a Friday night and I was half-asleep on my sofa watching some crappy dystopian movie on Netflix by myself. I was aware of how sad it was and briefly considered lying to make myself seem more interesting, but I saw three dots appear on the screen indicating that Matty was typing something.

The message came through a split-second later:

> **Matty:** I’m outside.

That got my attention.

I hadn’t seen Matty properly in weeks. He had been MIA from our last interview and the last few texts I had sent him had gone unanswered. He hadn’t responded to any of my voicemails either. The only reason I knew he was okay was because recent pictures of him had surfaced on the _Daily Mail_ ’s website earlier in the week – he had been spotted at an album launch for some up-and-coming band I had never heard of, absolutely trashed, with the same blonde model from the awards ceremony wrapped around him.

I got to my feet and cautiously made my way to the hall. I could see his shadow moving against the stained glass set into the front door. It had been lashing rain all day, and it was still pelting down.

I opened the door and he didn’t move. He was just standing there, on the doorstep, in the rain. I knew from his face that he wasn’t okay. His eyes met mine and his neutral expression crumpled. He started crying.

Forgetting the last few months, I immediately opened my arms and he rushed towards me, allowing me to envelop him.

I held him tightly, my own emotions getting the better of me when I realised he was freezing cold and soaked through. I swallowed my worry down into my heart. I knew the worst thing I could do right now was show my concern. If I allowed him to get a glimpse of it, he would lapse into his usual stupid defensive behaviour and lock me out with an “I’m fine.”

What was happening here was a now-rare moment of vulnerability from him. The last thing I wanted was for ‘Fake Matty’ to take over.

“How long have you been out there?” I asked, strategically moving him into the hall.

He didn’t respond.

We just stood there, front door hanging open and rain getting blown in onto the wood floor for a good 15 minutes. After what felt like an eternity, Matty finally spoke:

“The thoughts… they just got too loud. I… I just needed you George. I’m sorry,” He mumbled, pulling back from me as if he was suddenly self-conscious.

I just hushed him and pressed him back against my chest, not even caring that his wet hair was leaving a damp imprint on the front of my top.

“You can come here any time. I would sooner you come find me when you’re upset, you know that,” I murmured to him.

I gently manoeuvred us so I could close the front door with my foot, blocking out the cold.

Eventually the hug unravelled itself and we pulled apart. He stood there, clothes dripping onto the floor, looking around himself like he had never been in the house before despite the fact that he had once lived here for years. He suddenly seemed so small and fragile and lost.

I allowed myself to look at him properly. He was skin and bone. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in weeks, hadn’t slept in weeks. My heart ached. Something was wrong, I could _feel_ it.

“Do… do you want some tea? You’re soaked through,” I said, my voice catching slightly at the sorry sight of him. He was trembling. It was hard to see him like this.

He nodded and then shook his head, like he was coming back to his senses. He looked around and it was like he suddenly remembered where he was. He started walking through to the kitchen. He had walked this path so many times. A memory licked at my brain: happier times. Matty padding into the kitchen every morning in his bare feet and making a cup of tea. Matty lighting a cigarette and sitting down beside me to dissect the previous night’s gig or natter on excitedly about some amazing book he was reading or an incredible film he had seen. Man, I fucking missed it.

I missed him.

I followed him. He stood in the kitchen awkwardly. I walked past him and turned on the kettle and then quickly ducked out to the airing cupboard and got him a towel and one of my tops, which he accepted gratefully.

I busied myself with brewing two cups of tea as he stripped off his wet clothes and pulled on my top over his boxers. It looked comical on him, running down to the top of his thighs. He automatically sat into what had once been his usual seat at the kitchen table. I left the tea for a few seconds to put his wet coat, top and trousers over the radiator, although when I felt how saturated they were I knew the measly bit of heat wouldn’t do much. They would most definitely still be wet by the time he was leaving.

“Okay, what’s going on?” I asked quietly, setting a steaming mug of tea in front of him.

I sat across from him. Matty had the towel I had given him draped over his head, like he was trying to hide.

The shadows under his eyes made him look gaunt. Like a man haunted by something. My heart stirred. The violence with which I wanted to take care of him started me, the possessiveness of it. I was vaguely aware that even after everything that had happened between us thus far, nothing had been enough to kill the strength of my feelings for Matty.

The sound of the rain hit the root of the glass kitchen extension. Everything was dark bar the lamp on the floor nearby, which illuminated his face. He was still so fucking beautiful.

“I… I can’t sleep George,” he said. He ran a hand down his face.

“Every time I close my eyes, I feel like I’m drowning. I… I am terrified,” He said and I noticed the shake in his hand as he reached out for his mug of tea.

I reached out and placed my hand on top of his before I could stop myself.

“Everything will be okay mate. You know it will,” I said softly.

He nodded.

“I just… Do you ever feel like it’s all fucking pointless? Like you’re here and you do all this shit, but really you’re just spinning around?”

“I do, but everything you do is worth something mate. Everything you do is important. Matty, you are important,” I said the last bit so quietly, I wasn’t sure he heard it.

He looked at me with his dark eyes. The light of the lamp reflected in them. They were so warm. Like chocolate.

I gave him a sad smile. The rain was getting heavier. It pelted against the ceiling. A wave of emotion swelled up inside me and I felt weak. There was so much I wanted to say to him. All the words I had bitten back over the last few months. I just wanted to bare my soul to him in that moment and I wasn’t sure if it was the hour of night, the rain or the fact that I had sunk half a bottle of wine alone before he had appeared on my doorstep like a ghost.

“I didn’t mean it,” I blurted then and he frowned, confused at the sudden change of pace in our conversation.

“When… Fuck, when I said that I couldn’t,” I sighed, hoping that he would understand me.

“Matty… I… you were so upset and I…” I started, but trailed off. I had no idea how to even put into words what I was feeling. There was so much I wanted to say to him that all my words rushed forwards at once and did nothing bar create a dam inside me. They were all blocked up.

Pain surged through my heart. My eyes started to water. I closed my eyes and then he squeezed my hand.

I opened my eyes. He was studying me carefully.

Then he spoke:

“I… I know,” he said softly.

A silence stretched between us. We just looked at each other. His eyes were ringed with eyeliner. He looked exhausted and beaten down. I felt the desire to take care of him again so strongly. I just wanted to hold him and remind him that he was loved. That he would always be loved.

“Can I stay with you tonight?” he asked then, his voice tentative, breaking the silence that had settled over us.

“You know you’re always welcome here. I know you don’t technically live here anymore, but this is your home. It always has been,” I said.

“You’re my best mate George, you know that right?” His voice was small and quiet. Real.

It was him. My Matty.

“I know.”

We stayed like that for an hour, maybe more, just talking about everything and nothing. We spoke about the band, about new songs we were working on, about his family, my family. About Ross and the fact that he had been sneaking around with a high-profile actress for the past few weeks. Everything.

For the first time in a year I felt like my old self. I was just George and he was just Matty and it was just the two of us in our kitchen having a brew and a chat, and it was good. It was fucking good.

After awhile I got up to make another cup of tea and he followed me.

I could feel him behind me, entering my personal space and I felt that unique shift in atmosphere. The air had that familiar element of electricity to it.

When I turned around, he was standing right in front of me. I could smell the scent of rain emanating from him. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t question it, I didn’t overthink it, when he took a step forward and pressed his lips against mine.

He kissed me softly and then pulled back, as if he was trying to read my expression. He was hesitant, as if he didn’t trust himself. I met his eyes and as I did so, I read the message he was sending me:

_Are you sure this is okay?_

_Yes. Yes, please._

And I didn’t know what had changed within me, but suddenly it felt easy, uncomplicated, like us kissing was the most natural thing in the world. I kissed him back when he pressed his lips against mine for a second time. His hands found their way to my hair and he pressed me against him harder. He was still cold.

I could hear the rain failing against the ceiling still as he slipped his tongue into my mouth and he tasted just how I remembered. This was Matty. My Matty. He was here with me. He was back.

He didn’t stop me as I brought my hands to his face. I couldn’t stop kissing him. Emotion was surging through my body. It was overwhelming me. There was only him and I couldn’t say no to what he was offering me tonight. I was starved of him. I needed him. I just couldn’t say no.

“I have missed you so much,” I whispered the words as we broke apart naturally and he nodded, his face against my own. He was trembling again.

“George…” he breathed my name and I kissed him again as he dropped his hands to my waist, pulling me against him.

Closer…

Closer…

Closest.

Our lips pulled apart again, noses touching this time. All I could hear was the rain and our breaths, both of us slightly breathless now. I looked at him. His eyes were closed, a slight crease between his brows, longing written all over his face. I smiled slightly as he opened his eyes and I saw everything I had been craving reflected back at me.

I wanted to ask him, “Is this going to happen? Are we going to do this?” but he silenced with another kiss before I got the chance. The kiss was impossibly soft this time. Tender almost. And I knew. I felt the confirmation deep in my body, deeper than my bones.

His body spoke to mine as it always did and I just knew.

When he released me from the kiss, I gently grabbed his hand and he didn’t hesitate as I led him slowly out into the hall and up the stairs. I paused on the upstairs landing, unsure of where to go, but Matty put a hand on my chest, grabbing the fabric of my top, and gently tugged me to his former bedroom. The room I hadn’t been able to go into since he had moved out.

He drew me into another kiss as he opened the door and walked inside, breaking it and cursing loudly as his foot hit something. I suddenly became aware of the fact that the bedroom was still cluttered with half-full moving boxes. Matty had allegedly moved out a fucking _age_ ago, but a lot of his shit was still here. It made me laugh. This was so typically him. It was so chaotic. Matty had never been good at organisation or really being an adult.

“Oh fuck off,” He smiled as he swatted at me.

I went to hit his arms away and he grabbed my wrist and started kissing me with more urgency now. I didn’t struggle. I kissed him back, filling the kiss with every part of me. Every single bit of me that had fucking longed for him for the past year of my life, if not longer. I loved him. I loved him so fucking much and I just wanted him to know. I needed him to know.

We pulled apart again to breathe and he released me and sat down on his old bed. I watched him, framed by the light shining through the bedroom window as he leaned back onto his elbows. He was all pale skin and hard angles and those eyes that just burned into my soul so deeply. He took me in then, eyes moving from my feet to my head, drinking in every detail of me. His gaze was so masculine in that moment, so confident. I felt a fire igniting inside me and I briefly wondered if women felt this way under those eyes.

His eyes made their way back to mine. He bit his lower lip slowly and nodded his head slightly. A silent direction:

_Come on then._

I didn’t need to be asked again. I moved towards him and climbed on top of him slowly, connecting our lips and sinking down onto the mattress. His hands found my lower back as I kissed him and forcefully pressed me down onto him. I was already hard. I kissed him like my life depended on it and if this is what drowning felt like, I fucking never wanted to come up for air again.

His hands were back in my hair and he broke the kiss, moving my head to the side so he could breathe against my ear: “I need you.” His voice cracked slightly in that divine way it sometimes did and I felt his breathing hitch as my hands trailed under the top he was wearing, my top, and ran over his skin. He shivered deliciously under my touch and the wave of desire that hit me in that moment made me catch his mouth with my own again and kiss him as deeply as I could.

I had never wanted someone as much in my entire life. I wanted to imprint myself on him, so that the memory of me would be all he would see when he closed his eyes. I wanted him to lose control and unravel in my arms and realise that I was here and that I was so much better than the vapid models and the pretty girls and the celebrities he usually fucked. I knew him, the real him, and I would love him and protect him at all costs. I was here. Me. And I was his. Completely and utterly.

I pulled away from him and yanked at the material of his top. He sat up slightly beneath me so I could take it off him. As he moved, I felt his erection brushing against me and I couldn’t stop the low “ _Fuuuuck”_ that escaped my lips. He grinned and lay back down.

And then I saw his body and yes it was beautiful, I desired it, but he had gotten so thin. I reached down and ran a hand along his side, trying to keep my face neutral as I clearly felt the bumps of each of his ribs. Matty hadn’t been taking care of himself. He grabbed my hand, stopping me, and slowly moved it to the waist band of his boxers instead, distracting me. He threw his head back against the sheets and let out a noise that sounded almost animalistic. It sent arousal sparking through my body as I pulled them down and off his legs, throwing them onto the bedroom floor.

I paused again because I needed to see him. Really _see_ him. I didn’t want to forget anything about this night. He was magnificent. A work of art. Always had been. And my face flushed when I remembered that night in the van all those years ago when I had been drunk and clumsy and didn’t appreciate this particular moment the first time it presented itself to me in my life. Fuck it if I was going to take it for granted again. I was going to savour it this time.

I just wanted Matty to know that he was loved. I just wanted to kill the pain in his head. To chase away the darkness that was tormenting him. That was my soul intention as I moved my face towards his lower stomach and started kissing the skin there, loving how goosebumps appeared in my wake. Matty groaned as I moved down and placed a tender kiss on his cock and then another and another and another before I finally took him into my mouth properly.

The heat of him, the taste of him, took me to another place entirely and I could feel my own desire getting hotter and hotter as I ran my tongue over him.

“George,” he said my name and my eyes flicked up to him. He was up on his elbows again now, watching me suck him off.

I paused and he reached out a hand a cupped my cheek, eyes rolling back into his head as I let him fall from my mouth and ran my hand over him.

“Fucking hell,” he groaned as he flopped back onto the sheets.

I ran my tongue from the base of him to the tip, moaning slightly as I tasted the precum oozing from him. He tasted better than I remembered.

After a few more minutes, he placed a hand on my head, interrupting me.

“I-I need you to stop. Otherwise this will not last very long and will be very embarrassing for me,” he breathed.

I did as he asked and he lay still, trying to catch his breath for a few seconds before he reached out to me and pulled me back towards him for another kiss.

I was suddenly aware of the fact that I was wearing far too many clothes. I rolled away from him and stood up, taking off my top, followed by my joggers and boxers. My hand instinctively dropped down to my aching erection and squeezed slightly.

Matty got up and crawled across the mattress towards me. He kneeled up and kissed me where I stood, his hand finding my cock and brushing my own hand away. He grasped it firmly and I moaned. He caught my lips into a kiss. He started moving his hand, stroking me. It felt so good. I was dizzy with my want. I was aching for him and he knew it.

“Have you ever done this before?” he asked then, after kissing me again.

I shook my head. The closest I had ever gotten to this was when Hannah had let me try anal with her and that had required at least two months of detailed discussion and then, when we finally did the deed, at least two hours of warming up.

“That’s okay,” he kissed my cheek and I gasped as he squeezed me tighter with his hand.

“I just need you to be gentle, okay?” He said and I nodded.

I had never fucked a man before. I was suddenly very nervous.

Matty sensed the change in my mood and drew me in for another deep kiss.

“Thankfully, I have something that will help a lot,” He pulled back and let go of me.

I watched him, confused, as he got off the bed and started rummaging around in one of the half-full moving boxes.

He pulled a tube out and threw it at me. I caught it. It was lube. Of course we were going to need lube and of course, Matty just happened to have some lying around.

I knew what the next step of this dance was and Matty winked at me as he came back to the bed. I gently pushed him down onto his back and squirted some of the lube into my hand. He watched me intently as I slicked up my fingers. Then I took him back into my mouth and he moaned. It was like music to my ears.

I sucked him until he was begging me to stop and then I let him slip from my mouth again and circled my finger against his ass, letting him know what I was planning.

“Please, George, fuck,” He panted and that was all the encouragement I needed. He moaned as I slid one of my fingers inside him slowly.

I watched his face the entire time and it was fucking erotic. The way his brows creased slightly and then his mouth went slack. I had never, ever, seen a woman make a face like that when I was fingering them. Matty was divine.

I manoeuvred my finger gently, working according to his facial expressions. When I started to line up a second finger, he moaned loudly and I knew he was ready for it. My dick was so hard as I slipped my second finger inside him and he cried out. I hesitated, going to stop, but at that he raised his head to look at me and begged, “Please, fuck, please don’t stop. George, don’t fucking stop.”

I worked him, gradually feeling him relax more and more around my hand. I brought my mouth back down to his cock when I was more confident that I wasn’t going to hurt him and I fucking relished the taste of him. His dick was so swollen, so wet, he was cursing and panting and starting to lose control. I wanted him to cum in my mouth. I wanted to feel him spill down my throat and that’s the end goal I was working towards, but a hand on my head stopped me.

I released him from my mouth and met his eyes. The message was clear:

_Fuck me._

_You sure?_

_Yes. Please. Fuck me._

He gasped as I slid my fingers out and I watched as he picked up the bottle of lube beside him and squirted some into his hands. He rubbed his hands together and then reached down between us and slid his hands all over my dick, making me moan loudly at his touch.

Once I was slick, he released me and lay back down on his back properly. He propped up his hips slightly.

“It’s,” he swallowed. “It’s easier if my feet are on your shoulders.”

He dropped his eyes now as if he was shy.

“It’s a little late for you to start getting awkward now,” I said and he smiled at me.

I lowered myself so I was hovering just over his body and kissed his nose and then his mouth. I intended for the kiss to be cute, just enough to stop him feeling shy or embarrassed, but I didn’t stop him as he deepened it passionately. I was so engrossed with the kiss, with the scent of him, with the fact that this was actually happening, that _I was fucking naked and kissing Matty_ that I almost forgot what we were doing in the first place.

Matty’s eyes were half-closed as he broke the kiss and pushed me away.

“Focus Georgie,” his voice was low, thick with desire.

“If I hurt you or if you need me to stop, please tell me,” I said and he nodded.

I got onto my knees on the mattress and gently placed his legs onto my shoulders. He was so light as I moved him, I was terrified I was going to break him.

The moment of truth.

I lined myself up with his body and looked down at his beautiful face as I pressed my hips forward slowly. Matty looked serene, eyes widening slightly as I moved into him properly. Fireworks went off inside my brain and my body felt fucking electric as he took me in. I thought I was going to pass out.

“G-George, stay, stay with me,” Matty panted and I didn’t realise I had closed my eyes.

I opened them, aware that my pupils were probably blown out due to the fact I was experiencing so much fucking pleasure.

He lay there watching me as I continued to press into him, his face flushed, lips swollen, dark eyes so rich and full. He gasped as I hit the limit and I stopped pushing, allowing him to get used to me. I reached forward and placed my hand against his cheek, moving my thumb over his lips and failing to suppress the moan that escaped me as his tongue flicked against my thumb and he then sucked it into his mouth.

The pressure in my cock was maddening and as I removed my thumb from his mouth, he moaned one word: “Please.”

That was all I needed.

I started to move my hips slowly. All I wanted was for Matty to feel how much I needed him, how much I loved him. How fucking _crazy_ I was about him.

He felt amazing and as I moved, it was getting harder and harder to focus. I groaned and Matty answered me with a loud moan. I picked up speed. I felt like my skin was on fire. I was so deep inside him I felt like I was infinite and could fuck my way to heaven. He was paradise.

I fell forward over his body, still inside him and adjusting my hips and my legs so I could fuck him deeper, properly, the way he deserved. I wanted to bring him with me to whatever heaven I was going to.

His cock was grinding against my stomach now and one of us was making sounds that didn’t sound human. We were both unravelling and the bedroom started to fall away, the world started to fall away, all that mattered was my cock deep inside him and the cries of pleasure spilling out of his mouth. There was just us. Just our bodies. Nothing else mattered and I felt as though I could die in this moment and everything would have lead me here and it would be perfectly fine.

My orgasm slithered in the base of my stomach like something profane and delicious. I was dripping with sweat now and Matty’s mouth was dropped open in ecstasy.

“I-I-I…” I was trying to say something, but by this stage words had lost all meaning.

Matty answered me by wrapping his hands in my hair and then he said: “Please G, please. Come for me, fuck, come for me.”

As he uttered those words, my orgasm hit me like a speeding train.

I yelled his name so loudly as I spilled everything I had into him. I knew my neighbours heard me, but I didn’t give a fuck. My orgasm felt like an out of body experience. As I filled him, Matty cried out too and came all over my stomach and his own.

I collapsed onto him gracelessly. I couldn’t feel my body. I barely knew where the fuck I was. My vision was fuzzy around the edges.

We lay like that for a few moments, the only noise my racing heart and our laboured breathing.

I felt like I had been reborn.

“Fucking hell,” Matty groaned lazily somewhere above me and I came to my senses, carefully sliding myself out of him and moving up the bed so I could kiss him properly.

We didn’t speak after that, both of us too afraid, in case speaking would damage what had already taken place. We lay there together, a mess of limbs and bodily fluids that I was trying not to think too hard about, and eventually we both just fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning and Matty was gone, but this time he had left a note:

_I’m sorry._

Two words.

The note was scrawled on the back of a receipt for a packet of cigarettes and was sitting on the pillow beside my face. My heart sank.

_I’m sorry._

Last night was the most incredible experience of my entire life. I had felt something running through me and I knew he did too. How could he not have felt it?

I closed my eyes and I could feel the memory of him against me. The heat of his skin, the forceful press of his lips against mine, the way he felt when I was burying myself into him like he was the answer to life itself. My heart was breaking. All I wanted was to wrap myself around him and block out the world. It sounded obsessive and ridiculous, but it was the truth. I just wanted Matty. I just wanted him.

I was crying now.

 _I’m sorry_.

What the fuck did that even mean?

Of course last night hadn’t been real for him. None of this was and I was a fucking idiot. Based on his past behaviour, based on everything that had happened between us, I was stupid to think that last night would have changed anything.

I would love him tirelessly, to the point of fucking insanity, and he would come to me when he needed to feel better. He would come to me when he needed to get out of his own head, but he would never stay.

He would never fucking stay.

And this is what it boiled down to: he would expect me to always be here, to always stay for him, but he would continue to leave me. I would stay but he would just go. He was the one who got to walk away, free of pain, while I stayed and suffered.

I was destined to spend my life forever chasing him, holding my ripped-out heart in my hands and offering it up to him willingly. It was a gory visual, but it was exactly how I felt.

In the cold, English light that filtered through the curtains it felt as though the bliss that had flooded through my body last night had never even existed in the first place. My mood plummeted.

And then, the spark of anger ignited as I quickly processed the past 24-hours. Anger was good. Anger was what I needed. Anger was clear.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I picked up my phone and composed a brief but straight-to-the-point message:

> **George:** Fuck you Matty.

******


	13. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello my loves! Surprise Wednesday update for you today. We just went back into Covid lockdown where I am a few days ago, so literally all I've been doing is writing. There's a trigger warning on this chapter for addiction/drug use and serious G angst (all of the G angst).
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I'll be back on Saturday with more <3

**Chapter 10**

“In my head it’s a cohesive whole, you know? A straight narrative. It doesn’t appear that way, but in my head it makes sense, right? Did I say that it’s a cohesive whole? That’s what it feels like. A straight narrative.”

Matty’s hands were flailing around madly as he spoke, trying to emphasise his point. His knee was bouncing rapidly and I just wanted to leave.

Adam cleared his throat softly beside me and I looked at him. He raised his eyebrows and made a face that said: _This is not going well_.

And it wasn’t going well. It really fucking was _not_ going well. We were sitting on a hard sofa on the set of a prominent UK afternoon chat show with a big-name host. We had just performed and it had been sloppy. Matty had been all over the place. At one point he had completely forgotten what fucking key he was supposed to be singing in.

The entire day had been cursed since the moment I had woken up.

First I had overslept and had to scramble to make it to the TV studio on time. I had a raging hangover and just wanted to get the fuck out of here so I could go back home, drink more and block out the world, like I had been doing for the past few weeks.

Then Matty had missed sound check and when he had finally arrived, he was talking so fast he wasn’t making any fucking sense. He also clearly hadn’t slept or showered in days. He was a mess.

Hann had bundled him into the green room and forced him to drink some water and calm down. Matty was clearly coked up to his fucking eyeballs and because Adam Hann was a fucking saint amongst men, he had taken care of him and hidden him from Jamie, lest Jamie went insane. Jamie was getting tired of Matty’s shit. We all were.

Matty was a state these days and I hated the fact that even still, even after everything, I was worried about him.

After he had left me alone in bed the morning after we had slept together I had tried everything to kill the part of me that still loved him, but I just couldn’t. And even seeing him here, sitting in this interview, very obviously buzzing off his tits, I just wanted to wrap my arms around him and take him home. Bring him someplace safe.

I hated myself. I was pathetic.

I felt my anger welling up again.

Matty hadn’t said anything to me since that night. There had been no discussion, no closure, and whenever we were in the same room lately, the tension was tangible. While I hadn’t told Hann what had happened between us, I had called him and cried down the phone to him later that very same morning.

Hann had arrived at my house that night and stayed with me for three whole days just to make sure I was okay. He brought me food and let me cry it out. He was patient with me and didn’t ask any questions. He just let me sit in my pain and it was exactly what I needed. He also strategically took my phone so I couldn’t ring or text Matty and make the situation any worse than it already was.

In the weeks since, Hann hadn’t once asked me about what had happened. He was a good mate. The best. He also wasn’t stupid however, and I assume that he just knew. It was kind of hard not to know given how upset I was over everything. Ross had simply assumed that Matty and I had just had a falling out over something petty.

I had tried to speak to Matty multiple times since (once Hann finally trusted me with my phone). But my phone calls went unanswered. I knew what he was doing. Always trying to avoid confrontation, Matty was strategically making sure that we were never in the same room alone together and that on the rare occasions I actually saw him these days, he kept his distance. He thought I didn’t notice, but he was about as subtle in his attempts to avoid me as a brick to the face.

The fact that he could just pretend that nothing had happened between us was fucking laughable. And yet, I wondered, why the fuck was I even surprised by his behaviour? Hadn’t he been this way every other time anything had happened between us? It was my own fault for thinking something would have changed this time. I was a fool.

I was angry at him, but I was also angry at myself. And I was fed up of hurting and being sad. At least my anger felt better than being upset. My anger felt steadier and more sure of itself.

“And George, would you agree?”

“Hmm?” I roused myself when I realised the host was suddenly speaking to me.

“Would you agree that you and Matty create intuitively? That it’s very symbiotic?” he asked me.

“That’s one way of putting it,” I said, not meaning to be funny but making everyone in the audience laugh.

“My head is a mess and it buzzes constantly with thoughts, obsessions and ideas. George helps me to calm the mess and to actually function it into something cohesive,” said Matty.

My jaw tightened as he placed a hand on my knee for emphasis.

The host nodded and made some comment about how amazing that was and then moved on to asking about our next album.

I looked at Matty’s hand (which was still on my knee) like it was on fire and Adam nudged me subtly, reminding me that there were lots of people watching me and much and all as I’d like to, I couldn’t have a fucking breakdown on live television.

Matty removed his hand then and went off on another erratic tangent and I hated the part of me that felt bereft of his touch.

I had no idea what happened in the rest of the interview, but soon it was over. I noticed Matty getting to his feet and quickly slipping away. Ross and Hann had been accosted by some members of the audience and were happily posing for selfies. I shouted a lame excuse about needing to go make a phone call at them and I followed Matty, even though my head was screaming at me not to. I knew nothing good could come from this, but I was livid.

I found him in the green room, gathering his things together to leave. His back was to me as I slipped into the room and shut the door, but he knew it was me. He sighed loudly and his shoulders dropped in resignation at the fact that we were finally going to have to face each other.

He slowly turned around.

He was dressed completely in black – black jeans, black boots, black t-shirt, a ridiculous looking black coat. He had an apathetic look on his face. He had lost even more weight since I had last seen him properly. Dark circles fell heavy beneath his eyes. His pupils were fucking huge. His hands had loads of small scratches on them, like he had gotten into an altercation with a ditch or a fence made from barbed wire.

“What the fuck was that?” I snapped, surprising myself with the harshness in my voice.

He brought a hand up to his forehead like he was in pain.

“Do you really want to do this? Here George? Really?” He sighed again which enraged me more.

“I’m sorry that this is such a fucking inconvenience to you,” I said.

He rolled his eyes at me.

“Matty, you couldn’t hold a fucking note out there. Are you even aware of how messed up you look right now?”

“It’s good to see you too Georgie,” he said sarcastically.

“You know you could see me more if you actually bothered to show up for studio time. We all waited for you last week, although I’m sure you knew that right? I’m sure you got, I don’t know, maybe one of the twelve messages we left you?”

My head was slamming. I just wanted to go home.

“I’ve been busy,” he said.

“Doing what? Getting high? Going out? Being so busy that you forgot about your actual job? We have an album just sitting there that needs a fuck ton of work. We have fans that we can’t let down. Have you just stopped caring about them?”

He scoffed at that and raked a hand through his hair. He was agitated.

“I see what this is. You’re just fucked off because I left you. That’s pathetic George, really truly pathetic. You’re projecting your insecure, macho, bullshit fear of rejection onto me and it’s a joke. Much like this conversation,” he turned around and grabbed his bag.

“A joke? Have you looked in a fucking mirror lately? Oh yeah, you’re a big rock star now mate, too big to give a shit about your fans, about the music. Spare me Matty. You’re a walking cliché,” I was seeing red now.

I could tell that my words hurt him, but I was so angry I didn’t care. I wanted him to feel shit. My anger swelled inside me again and I was so pissed off, I went for the jugular:

“Your critics are right mate, you’re all fucking talk and zero substance. Zero talent. You’re a shit singer and a shit friend. You’re also a pretentious prick and always have been.”

He bit his bottom lip.

“The truth hurts Matty, doesn’t it?” I added, just to twist the knife a bit deeper.

I knew I had gone too far when his eyes filled with tears. For one of the few times in our shared history, Matty was completely silent.

The door opened then and we both glared at Adam and Ross as they entered.

“Oh fuck,” Hann said under his breath, immediately assessing the situation.

“George, Matty, how about we put a pin in whatever this is and sort it out at home?” He said.

He went to close the door to give us some privacy but Matty spoke then:

“Leave it open, I was just leaving.”

He purposely slammed into my shoulder as he walked to the door and then he paused for a split second, turned around, took a hard look at me and said:

“Go fuck yourself George.”

Then he left.

I slumped down onto a nearby sofa and put my head in my hands.

“What the fuck is going on between you two?” Ross asked. He sat down beside me and placed a hand on my shoulder and I shrugged it off.

“Just leave it Ross. Fuck this actual shit,” I snapped.

I had gone too far with Matty. I knew I had. Matty’s biggest fear was being an imposter. He never believed he was good enough for his incredible career and I had just completely exploited this deep fear in order to provoke a reaction from him. He also wasn’t a shit singer. I knew that, but I just wanted to make him hurt. It was petty of me, but a part of me wanted him to suffer because I was suffering. I didn’t want to be alone in my pain.

“Fuck!” I shouted in frustration, making Ross jump beside me.

“G?” Adam knelt down in front of me then, trying to diffuse the situation.

I purposely avoided his kind eyes because that was how Adam always got you. One look at those concern-filled eyes and you were crying and spilling all your secrets to him.

My anger was coursing through my veins. The adrenaline from my fight with Matty was pumping in my blood. I suddenly realised that I couldn’t stay here. I needed air.

“Where are you going?” Adam asked as I got to my feet.

“I just need some space,” I said as I walked out the door.

It was another rainy, dull day in London and I was getting soaked as I walked around aimlessly, but I didn’t care. The weather matched my mood – pathetic fallacy in action. I walked, not sure where I was actually going. My feet seemed to have a mind of their own.

I briefly thought about going home and getting drunk, but I realised that I didn’t even want to be in my own house. I couldn’t stomach it. Matty didn’t live there anymore, but his essence was engrained in every surface of that fucking house. I couldn’t look at anything in there without thinking of him – the mug he always gravitated towards for his morning brew, the fag burn on the sofa from that night we stayed up till 3am watching re-runs of _Geordie Shore_ while high, the emergency packet of fags he kept on the shelf in the bathroom. He was everywhere in that house. I couldn’t go back there. Not right now.

I continued walking for hours and the weather steadily got worse. I had three missed calls on my phone – one from Jamie, two from Hann – and a text:

> **Hann:** Do what you need to, but just let me know you’re okay? Worried about you mate.

Do what I need to? I didn’t even know what I needed. All I knew was that I was upset and pissed off and my life felt like it was collapsing slowly right in front of me. I was _exhausted_ by my feelings for Matty. I was tired of this weird little dance we kept doing with each other where the boundaries were continually blurred. Where I felt like I was taking part in some game that I would never, ever win. And yet… I just couldn’t stop. I was on my way towards a fatal impact and I just could not stop. The worst thing was that deep down I didn’t think I even wanted to. I knew that if Matty were to show up in front of me right now and kiss me, I’d kiss him back and that was fucked up. I was aware of how fucked up that was.

And Matty… fuck. I couldn’t get him out of my head. The more I walked, the more my anger started to be replaced by a deep sense of dread. Matty was obviously struggling. Matty was a mess. Yes, Matty loved to party but in all the years I had known him, he had never, ever allowed his partying to interfere with his life, with his work. The music always came first. The singing always came first. The band always came first. The fans always came first. So to see him in that state today?

I stopped walking when I suddenly realised that I had let my anger cloud my vision. It wasn’t good that Matty had shown up like that today.

I felt a coldness creeping into my bones. Matty wasn’t okay. Matty hadn’t been okay for a long time. He hadn’t been okay when he had shown up on my doorstep in the rain and us sleeping together had probably just added fuel to the fire. An image flashed into my mind then – Matty’s notebook and that sentence: _So what about these feelings I’ve got?_

Yeah, what about _my_ feelings?

I ran a hand down my face. I didn’t mean the things I had said. The guilt crept in then, followed by the fear. Matty was supposed to be my best friend and here I was being a fucking asshole to him when he clearly needed my help.

The performance earlier was a warning sign. This was not Matty. It just wasn’t him.

I started walking again, a really disconcerting feeling settling on me. Something wasn’t right. I could just _feel_ it and I was terrified.

The rain started to get even heavier and I suddenly realised I was shivering. I had nothing with me – I had left all my stuff back in the TV studio. I had no cash, no house keys, no car. The only possession on me was my phone and my battery was at ten per cent. I looked around at my surroundings – I was halfway across the city. Matty’s place was a twenty-minute walk away. It would take me at least an hour to get back to my own house, if not longer.

I dipped under a shop awning and took out my phone, my hands shaking as I dialled Matty’s number. I felt nervous, scared. His phone rang and rang and eventually went to voicemail. I tried him twice more before I left a message: “It’s me. I didn’t mean any of those awful things I said. I’m worried about you. Fuck…” my voice cracked. I was crying now. Great. I hung up.

As soon as I hung up, my phone started vibrating. Adam’s name appeared on the screen. I answered this time.

“You okay?” Adam’s voice was quiet.

“Yeah, I… Have you heard from Matty? I’m worried Adam,” I said, voice thick with tears.

“No, we’ve been calling him but no answer. I’m worried too given the weather and the state of him earlier. Ross and Jamie are going to do a drive-round to see if they can find him. Where are you?”

I looked around, trying to find a landmark. There was nothing.

“Look, I’m close enough to his house. I’m going to go see if he’s there,” I said.

“Do you think that’s a good idea G?” Adam asked.

“I need to make sure he’s okay I – ”

My battery died before I could finish my sentence: _I need to make sure he’s okay, I have a bad feeling Adam. I feel like something horrible is about to happen and I don’t know why._

My anxiety was raging and the rain chilled me to my bones as I started heading in the direction of Matty’s place. I had only been there a handful of times before and I hated it. It was a dark and dingy little Victorian terraced house and Matty’s taste in interior decoration resembled something out of a horror film. It was very… aesthetic in a weird ‘fill-your-house-with-creepy-antiques’ kind of way. It didn’t give me a good vibe.

But still, I hoped that he’d see me standing on his doorstep and all would be forgiven and he’d let me in and make me a cup of tea like I had done for him that night.

That night.

_Fuck._

My heart lurched.

Everything was so fucked up. I desperately wanted to stop time and just rewind back to that night. Rewind back to the two of us just circled up together, limbs everywhere, sleeping in that blissful, happy way that you only experience when you’ve had some truly incredible sex.

Why couldn’t we just go back to that?

When I got to Matty’s, I knew he wasn’t home. There were zero lights on, but I tried leaning on his doorbell anyway, just in case he was skulking around in there in the dark. A flash of lightning made me jump and it was followed by a deep grumble of thunder. The weather was not helping my anxious state of mind.

I walked round to the side of the house and tried knocking on the living room window. Still there was no answer.

“Fuck,” I cursed as I made my way back to the front door.

There was no way I’d be able to walk back to my house now. My phone was dead, I had no cash, nothing and I didn’t know Matty’s neighbours, but I couldn’t imagine they’d open the door to a man who was soaked and crying in the middle of a thunderstorm.

I knew Matty and I were probably in the worst fight we had ever had, but I also knew that even if he hated me, he still wouldn’t want me to freeze to death on his doorstep, so I stuck my hand in the flower pot beside the front door and started grasping around blindly.

There, amongst the dead flowers and endless fag butts, I found his spare key. Matty was so forgetful he always had to have a spare key somewhere. He locked himself out so much any given month, it was almost comical.

I felt like I was breaking and entering as I opened the door and slipped inside, and I guess I was to be fair.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled musty, like someone had deposited a ton of spliff and cigarette butts right in the hallway. It wasn’t good. My anxiety started to peak as I looked around. The hallway was littered with shoes and clothes. A plant on an end table in the hall looked like it had died weeks ago and had been steadily rotting all this time.

I realised I was standing on a pile of unopened letters and junk mail.

“What the fuck is going on?” I said to myself.

Matty was chaotic, yes. Matty was forgetful, yes. Matty left half-empty cups of tea and coffee fucking everywhere, yes. But he wasn’t a slob.

It was when I walked into the kitchen at the back of the house that I knew my gut instinct was right and something was very, very wrong.

The bin was overflowing and there were three other big, black bags full of rubbish littering the floor. Dirty dishes were piled up on every available surface. The curtains were hanging off the window, like someone had tried to pull them down. There were half-empty bottles of wine scattered everywhere and then I saw it on the kitchen table.

Surrounded by empty bottles of Xanax and other drugs – prescription pain killers, all with his name printed neatly on the brown bottles – a small wooden box. I knew what I was looking at immediately. It was a stash box. Fuck, I had one myself for my weed. But I knew, I just knew, that this was bad. With a shaking hand I reached out and opened the box anyway, as if I had to confirm my worst fears.

The glass pipe just sat there on top of a bed of crumpled tin foil scraps and a lighter.

I was shaking so badly I had to pull myself into a nearby chair before I collapsed. I knocked over an empty bottle of wine in the process. I felt like all the air had left my lungs. I was winded.

This is why Matty hadn’t been okay. This was why Matty looked like a fucking wreck. This was what I had missed. Suddenly it all made sense.

Matty had been struggling and I had missed it.

I had missed it.

******

It was the early hours of the morning when he finally made an appearance. I physically hadn’t been able to leave my spot at the kitchen table. I was numb. In shock. Petrified.

At one point, hours ago, someone had knocked on Matty’s front door. I assumed it was Ross or Jamie, but I couldn’t make myself get up and let them in. Eventually whoever it was had given up and went away, assuming no one was home.

Matty didn’t bother to turn on any lights. He just waltzed into the kitchen and flung his keys onto the small island counter. He jumped when he saw me sitting there.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” His voice was low and irritated.

He flipped on the kitchen light so he could see me better, and I watched as those dark eyes moved from me to the wooden box on the kitchen table.

“What…” I had to pause because my voice was shaking so badly.

“What have you been doing Matty?”

The last part came out as a whisper. I looked at him, allowing the full extent of my pain and terror to show in my eyes:

“I’m so fucking worried about you.”

“You have no right to worry about me,” he snapped.

“How can you say that?” I asked, my voice strained with the effort of trying to hold back my tears.

He pulled a bottle of wine out of his bag and then turned his back on me. He started rummaging around in the kitchen drawers, looking for a bottle opener. His movements were fast, frantic, angry.

I got up and went to him.

He started slamming the drawers and crying.

“Matty,” I put a hand on his shoulder. He trembled beneath my touch.

“I can never find any FUCKING thing in this FUCKING HOUSE!” He yelled, pulling a drawer out completely and dropping it on the floor.

I tried to grab him into a hug but he pushed me away.

“Let go of me!”

I backed up and held my hands up, trying to show that I wasn’t a threat.

I swallowed.

“How long has this been going on?” I asked, trying my hardest to keep my voice soft, gentle.

Matty wasn’t in his right mind. I was terrified. The last thing I needed was for this situation to escalate to the point where one of us got hurt.

“Matty, please, you have to tell me. How long has this been going on?”

He ignored me and went back to his bag, taking out a packet of cigarettes. I watched him as he tried to light one. He was shaking so badly he physically couldn’t do it. Eye make-up was smeared down his cheeks. His pupils were the size of saucers. He was high. I could see dried blood flaking just below his left nostril.

“It’s none of your fucking business George. I’m an adult. I can make my own decisions,” he said.

I saw it then, plain as day, fake Matty moving over his face like a second skin. That fake self that always tried to block me out.

“We can get you help mate,” I started and he interrupted me with a laugh.

He succeeded in lighting his cigarette and look a long drag.

“Oh don’t be tedious love. What are you? My fucking mother? I don’t need your help George. I keep telling you I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re fine are you? Fine, right. That’s clearly a lie Matty. You’ve been lying to me, to all of us, for months now. You’re _fine_. You’re always _fine_. You think this is fine?” I opened my arms to the room with its rubbish and wine bottles and empty pill bottles.

“And what would you know about being fine George? Have you ever said anything true in your entire fucking life? Ever since I’ve known you all you’ve done is squash down how you really feel. You hate to admit it, but you’re just as fucked up as I am,” he said, voice harsh.

“Don’t turn this around on me,” I said.

“No, let’s talk about you George. Let’s talk about how you can’t even ask for what you really want because you’re a fucking coward,” he glared at me.

He was talking about us and I knew he was only bringing it up to hurt me and to distract from what was really going on here. All I wanted was for Matty to talk about us, but not like this. Not in this way.

I tried to change the subject by demanding answers like how long, why, where, when, who? Just how fucking long had he been lying to me? But he could tell that his previous sentence had rattled me.

“Look at you!” He laughed again.

“Jesus fucking Christ George. Even now you can’t do it. You’d rather just stay silent than be a fucking man and ask for what you want. You said I was a joke? Well take a look at yourself love.”

Pain welled up inside me like a wave. He was taunting me. I wanted to enforce a boundary with him. I wanted to tell him we weren’t going to have this conversation now. I wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up. I wanted to walk out and leave him standing there. Instead I stayed silent and I hated myself for it.

“Oh and for the record?” He said, adding insult to injury, “It didn’t mean anything to me anyway. You were just a comma in a very, very, very long sentence sweetheart.”

While he didn’t say he was talking about our night together, I knew he was. I wasn’t stupid. I read between the lines. It had meant nothing to him. _I_ had meant nothing to him. I felt so fucking stupid.

My anger surged through me and before I knew what I was doing, I had taken a step towards him. My hands were balled into fists.

Matty noticed and laughed again.

“What now? You’re going to fucking punch me? Grow up George – don’t be so fucking melodramatic.”

“You’re a fucking asshole do you know that?” I snapped. “What about the band? Do you want us to kick you out? What good is a junkie for a lead singer?”

He narrowed his eyes at me. I had struck a nerve.

“Kick me out? Oh fuck you George. Fuck you and fuck Ross and fuck Hann. I AM the band. Without me you’re all nothing. Who does the media love? ME. Who writes all the fucking lyrics? ME. Who keeps us relevant? FUCKING ME!” He spat the words at me.

“You lot can get on board or FUCK OFF because I’m not changing. I’m not giving up the only thing that makes me happy. You take this away from me and there’ll be no more cushy career, no more cash, nothing. Fuck you. FUCK YOU!”

He swept his arm across the kitchen island in anger and a symphony of wine bottles hitting the hard tiles filled the air.

“You need help,” I said then, my voice was desperate. I was pleading with him.

I was fucking terrified. Matty was falling apart, he had been for months now.

His hand was bleeding after hitting the bottles. I went to reach out for it, to help him, but he whipped his hand away and screamed: “DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!”

I took a step back.

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

He screamed the words at me and stormed out of the kitchen. He ran up the stairs and somewhere above me, I heard a door slam followed by things being thrown around.

Stunned, I just stood there in Matty’s filthy kitchen, my own hands shaking, trying to process what had happened.

Not knowing what else to do, I sat back down at the kitchen table and once the tears started coming, I couldn’t stop them.

I couldn’t fucking stop them.

******

I was woken by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. I cracked open one eye, feeling my stomach lurch sickeningly when I remembered where I was. Matty’s kitchen looked even sadder in the cold light of morning. At some point during the night I had fallen asleep. The terrifying recognition that last night hadn’t been a nightmare and had, in fact, been real hit me like a ton of bricks.

Emotion clawed at the back of my throat. It was early.

I sat up slowly, cursing under my breath at how stiff my neck was (I had fallen asleep face down on Matty’s kitchen table). And then, the unmistakeable sensation of someone watching me prickled at my skin. I looked up.

Matty stood in the doorway. He was topless and he was skin and bone. I could see each of his ribs from here. I could see the hard angles of his hip bones. His torso was littered with bruises and scratches. He was trembling and crying.

He reached a hand up to his head and squeezed his eyes shut as he hit at his head, like he was trying to slap something out of his brain.

I got up without a word and went to him. He looked up at me as I grabbed his hand and stopped him from hurting himself. And then I wrapped my arms around him and I pressed him against my chest, holding him as tightly as I could.

Moments passed. We were both crying now. And then he spoke:

“George?”

“Yes mate?”

“I… I think I need to go to rehab.”

**********


	14. Intermission 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: People, thank you so much for all your views, comments, kudos and kind words about this little fic of mine. It honestly means the world to me that you keep showing up to read it. I really appreciate it and you're all absolute legends for encouraging me to keep on going. I officially decided on the end the other day and I'm so excited to take you all on this angst-ridden, emotional journey. There's still a few more chapters to go :) 
> 
> I have another double update for you today. Happy Halloween! <3

**Intermission 3**

_And he said, “I’ve lost my head.  
Can you see it? Can you see it?”_

You can’t get that night out of your head. No matter how much you try, it just keeps replaying itself on a loop.

You close your eyes and you can see him standing in the doorway of his filthy kitchen. You see his hands shaking, the tortured look on his face, and you feel like you’re back there.

Adam says you’ve technically been through some kind of trauma, and maybe he’s right, but you ignore his suggestion of talking to someone. Adam says he’s worried about you and now that Matty is away getting the help he needs, maybe, just maybe, _you should start taking care of yourself too Georgie and get some help as well. You do know that we love you and that we’re worried about you right? Promise me you’ll think about getting some help mate._

But you can’t.

All you really do is sit and think about Matty. He consumes your every waking thought. He’s a million miles away, somewhere sunny, locked into a rehabilitation centre and you haven’t spoken to him since the day he left, but he’s still the only thing you think about.

_Bellyaches when you’re in bed  
Can you feel it? Can you feel it?_

After that awful night, you had called Denise and his family had descended within a matter of hours and whisked him away to their home back up north while you broke the news to Jamie and Hann and Ross. You had cried so fucking hard that it took you several attempts to explain what had happened and what you had seen in Matty’s house. What you had seen on his kitchen table.

The last time you saw Matty, he was being bundled into the backseat of his stepdad’s car, his mum’s faux fur jacket wrapped protectively around his frail and shaking frame. He had given you a sad look from the rear window as they drove off and that had been it.

(It had broken your fucking heart that look.)

He had called you a few days later, just before he left for rehab. You almost missed the call and you got the impression that he had been hoping your phone would just go straight to voicemail because he sounded off-guard when you picked up the call. You didn’t even say hello, you just said his name frantically:

_Matty._

And he had sighed deeply and said: _I’m scared Georgie. I’m scared._

And you had put on your brave face and told him it would be okay and no matter what happened, you’d be here for him. You’d always be here for him.

He had said goodbye then and you had just stood there, phone to your ear even though he had hung up and all you could hear was a dial tone, and you had cried and cried and cried.

_And he said, “I’ve lost my head.  
Can you see it? Can you see it?”_

You still feel wracked with guilt over everything that’s happened. You blame yourself for the fact that you were so caught up in your own selfish feelings for him that you missed all the signs that he was using in a way that was addicted. And the worse thing is, when you look back, the classic signs were there. The signs were _all_ there. How could you not have known he wasn’t just partying? How could you not have known it had become full-on addiction?

You stop going out. You ignore calls. You even miss an interview or two because you physically can’t get out of bed and when Jamie decides to pull media appearances for a few weeks, you’re relieved. You’re so relieved because your sadness, your frail, upset state of mind feels tangible. Like it’s leaking from you like a whale song and other people can feel it.

Like you walk into a room and everyone knows that you’re barely holding it together.

Every single part of you feels raw and strained. Like an exposed nerve.

No one hears from Matty. Not even his little brother, who you call close to tears one night after a few drinks. And you make the poor kid swear on everything he loves, _yes, everything, even Denise and Tim and Matty and your own life_ , that he’ll let you know the second he hears anything from his brother.

You feel like you’ve lost some vital part of yourself that you never really knew was there in the absence of Matty, but you’re also confused because though you love him desperately, you hate the way he has treated you. But he’s your best mate and yet he was lying to you this entire time. You still hear his voice: _“I’m fine.”_

The betrayal stings like a physical wound.

You stop sleeping then and Hann makes you go to the doctor, who diagnoses acute stress and gives you sleeping pills. The pills black you out but it’s not a restful sleep and every time you dream, you still see Matty standing there in the doorway of his kitchen, shivering and terrified.

You flush the pills down the toilet a few days later.

_Bellyaches when you’re in bed  
Can you feel it? Can you feel it?_

The weeks stretch on and time becomes a concept rather than an actual thing you can use to measure your days. You roam the house and you see Matty everywhere. On one particularly low night, you go back to his old room and you touch everything in there like a holy relic because you just want to be near the echo of happiness (or what you _thought_ was happiness).

You realise that you can’t remember how happiness feels anymore, not really. It’s an alien idea to you now. And you think of your parents and your sisters and you hope that might spark some positive remembering inside your chest, but nothing seems to shift the dead weight that’s now in the spot where your heart is supposed to be.

Adam starts calling to your house more frequently. He shows up unannounced and brings groceries. He and Ross begin alternating their visits so you’re never really alone. Ross isn’t himself around you anymore either. His bawdy humour is held in check. Instead of his usual sarcasm and teasing, he looks at you as though you’re a wounded animal in need of care. He hugs you more. Tells you that he loves you and that you’re a good mate, but his words don’t really touch you. They just float above your head and you can’t grab them and hold them close and feel their warmth.

Everything just feels cold without Matty.

Everything feels cold because, you realise, _this is all your fault._ You failed him. Matty needed your help and _you let him down_.

You let him down.

One evening, after you’ve been crying over Matty yet again, Adam asks a question that scares you: “Do you think you could be suffering from depression?”

He asks: “Would you like to go home for a bit? See your family? Get out of the city?”

_And he said, “I’ve lost my head.  
Can you see it? Can you see it?”_

Your eldest sister lives in the countryside with her husband and an excitable golden retriever called Hank. Both your sister and Hank are overjoyed to see you when Adam drops you off. You decided on this particular sister because you two have always been close and you know she won’t smother you like your mum would. This sister will give you space. She won’t pry. She’ll just be there for you and she’ll let you cry and won’t force you to go outside.

That day you arrive, she brings you to your room, your “home away from home,” and leaves you to get “settled in.” She says both of those phrases the exact same way your mum does, but you can’t tell her that because she would kill you for making the comparison. Turning into your mum is her greatest fear.

You can hear her worried, low voice talking to Adam in the downstairs hall when you go to the bathroom. You stand silently at the top of the stairs and listen. They’re not being as subtle as they think.

“You know I have to ask this Adam, but with Matt and all – was George caught up in anything?”

By “anything” she means heavy drug use. By “anything” she means addiction. By “anything” she means heroin.

“No, but he’s really struggling. You can see it in his face. We’re all so worried about him. I think his mental health is a bit messed up with everything that’s happened. This entire thing has been so hard on him,” sighs Adam.

Adam doesn’t tell your secret. He doesn’t tell your sister that your heart literally feels like it’s pulling apart at the seams in your chest. That everything you feel for Matty is literally cannibalising you from the inside out.

_Bellyaches when you’re in bed_

Because that’s what this is really: Your love for Matty is eating away at you.

_Can you feel it?_

Your love for Matty is terminal.

_Can you feel it?_

Your love for Matty is starting to destroy you.

******


	15. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: We're back to the present tense with this chapter. It follows on directly from the events in Chapter 7 in case you need a refresher. Enjoy <3

**Chapter 11**

“Matty I haven’t been okay since I met you.”

Café to street. Past to present. My words hung in the air. Life went on around us. London was alive.

He looked at me, those big, dark eyes studying me. A slight confusion quickly flickered over his face as he took in my words and it was almost as if he was looking at a stranger for a split second, but he nodded quickly and brought the cigarette up to his lips and took another drag.

He removed it from his mouth and flicked some ash off the tip. His jaw had tightened slightly. He exhaled. He bit his bottom lip. He was processing.

I suddenly had the morbid desire to crawl inside his skull and witness how he processed first-hand. I could always read Matty, yes, I but I never fucking knew _exactly_ what he was thinking. They were two completely different things.

I felt my anxiety welling up inside me at his long silence, at how weird it felt for me to be honest around him and my natural urge to save him, to throw him a rope, to spare him discomfort in this moment was intense. I forced myself to take a deep breath and then took another drag of my own cigarette.

Matty had issues with substances. I had issues with self-betrayal.

I remembered what Dr Will had said: “ _Sit with the discomfort that follows your honesty George. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Lean into the awkward silence. Make friends with it. Get comfortable with stating your truth, even if that truth is uncomfortable.”_

It was complete fucking _bollocks._

“It wasn’t all bad, was it George?” He spoke then, his voice unsure.

Matty’s eyes flickered up to mine quickly, immediately looking away again when he saw me looking back at him. He shifted uncomfortably, tugged at his sleeve, went to run his hand through his non-existent hair again. His movements were childish, distracted – I knew it was the anxiety disorder. In the back of my mind, I wondered if he was still taking anti-anxiety medication. If he _could_ still take it given his history of addiction. And if he couldn’t take it, what was calming his brain down now that I had been out of the picture for so long?

Flashback of the empty Xanax bottles strewn across his kitchen table on that one horrible night. Intense pain in my chest at the memory of him standing in the doorway.

I shivered in the here and now. A deep sadness was pushing itself against the sides of my mind, like the slightest thing would cause the dam in there to collapse and allow it to flood into every part of my brain and drown me.

And I felt my heart, deep in my chest, straining against my rib cage like it was trying to escape. All it wanted was to go to Matty. It felt like pain, but maybe it was just longing. Maybe it was a potent cocktail of the two.

 _Breathe George_.

“It wasn’t all great either mate, was it?” I said then, forcing myself to be honest again.

He smiled sadly at that.

“No, I guess it wasn’t… I have the tendency to block out the…” he paused, hand waving in the air in front of him, as if he was grasping for the right words, “…less desirable parts of our shared history. They hurt.”

I nodded at that. They sure fucking did.

They hurt so much, in fact, that I now divided my life by a timeline: BM (Before Matty) and AM (After Matty). Before Matty had been sad and empty and After Matty had also been sad and empty, but for two completely different reasons.

He was still beautiful though. I knew that much and I _fucking hated_ that I could still see it. After the… unpleasantness all I had wanted was to stop seeing it. To go somewhere and have my eyes scrubbed clean so I would never have to see it again. He blinded me and it sounds so pathetic to admit that, but it was true. Even now, in his thirties, he was still striking. The more you looked at him, the more handsome he became. His age just enhanced his features. He was growing into more of himself and it was beautiful.

I missed him. I _had_ missed him. But I was trying to move on. I was trying to heal. Why the fuck couldn’t I just heal? Why was it so fucking hard to forget him, to just walk away from him? Why was it so fucking hard to choose better for myself?

And more importantly, why didn’t I believe I deserved better? Why didn’t I believe I deserved a nice woman with kind eyes and a big heart who wanted to be there for me? Who wanted to settle down with me? Who loved me unconditionally? Who wasn’t troubled and flighty in her affections? What did that say about me? What did it say about me that even still I felt compelled to let Matty walk all over me and even when I was face down in the dirt, I would try to make myself even flatter, just so he was comfortable… just so he didn’t experience any kind of pain.

My heart clawed at the back of my throat. It swelled as he just stood there being Matty. It recognised him. It just wanted to go to him, to be his, like it always did. Sometimes it felt like my heart wasn’t even my own – like I just had it on loan and would eventually have to give it back to him.

I had to get a fucking grip on myself. I had to be strong.

Matty once told me all I did was squash down my feelings and lie about how I really felt because I was a coward. This was the only chance I had to prove to him that I had changed and that he had been wrong.

I suddenly felt like I needed air, which was fucking ironic considering I was smoking and I was outside.

A car horn broke the awkwardness that had settled between us and a group of young lads drove by, windows rolled down, tunes pumping and phones pointed in our direction. We were standing on the footpath.

“Matty! Play ‘Antichrist’ live!” One of them yelled and Matty groaned beside me.

“That’s never going to stop being a thing is it?” He sighed, waving at them as they drove on.

“It’s your own fault,” I said and then, anticipating exactly what he was going to say next, I said it at the same time as him:

“I just can’t perform it if I can’t get the sound right.”

Matty smiled at me warmly and I couldn’t help the small smile that broke onto my face. We started walking again.

“How’s Tim?” I asked after his dad.

Matty’s dad had a huge personality. He was warm, friendly, constantly smiling and making jokes. He always looked on the bright side and found the fun in life. Sometimes it was hard to see the resemblance between him and Matty. Matty with his big, sad eyes. But then when Matty was truly happy, when he was laughing and cracking jokes, it was obvious that some little part of his dad had implanted itself in his DNA.

“Oh… yeah, he’s alright. He gets no peace from the fans on Twitter. Every time I breathe they hound him,” he said.

“I think he loves it though. He’s always talking about the amount of fucking retweets he gets,” he added.

He absent-mindedly brought his hand up to his head again, fingers curling closed when he remembered his lack of hair. I was quickly noticing that this was an anxious tick he seemed to have developed. He was still nervous. So was I.

“How’s Laura?” He asked.

Her name was Lauren. We had split up almost a year ago because I couldn’t “open up.” I was, she said, “emotionally unavailable,” which was rich seeing as how I cried more than she did.

I cried over fucking everything.

She had left much like Hannah had, angrily grabbing her things and stuffing them into a bag and, much like Hannah, I couldn’t find it within myself to care.

“I wouldn’t know. We split a while ago,” I said quietly and Matty apologised.

“Shit, sorry… I forget sometimes that it’s been so long since we…” He trailed off.

I wanted to say: Since we what? Since we fucked passionately in your old bed? Since I spent every waking moment worrying about you when you were in rehab? Since you fucked with my head?

Since the second time when you really, truly outdid yourself and fucking _destroyed_ me?

 _No_ , I told myself, _don’t think about it._

But I couldn’t help it. The images spilled into my mind and I couldn’t stop them: The heat of bare skin contact, Matty backlit on the balcony of some hotel, the chill in my bones from the rain, the kiss of the bathroom tiles as they rose up to meet my knees, the cracked screen on my phone… the pain, the pain, the pain.

“I changed my life, you know,” he caught me off-guard as he changed the topic then.

We were walking side by side now. The path was narrow and every so often our shoulders or hands would accidentally brush together like a sigh as we moved. I wondered if he was as painfully aware of it as I was. If he was, he showed no indication.

“After you left, I went back to therapy. I took up martial arts. I started eating proper food. I moved house,” he sighed at that.

I pictured Matty’s sad little Victorian terraced house, full of empty bottles of wine and overflowing rubbish bins and a weird mix of antiquities.

When he got back from rehab, he had continued living there. He had tidied it up. He had filled it with living plants and took care of them (something he had brought back with him from the clinic). He had spent months painting a picture of a fucking horse to hang in his living room, to remind him of what was at stake if he relapsed (it was something to do with the equine therapy he had received). He had also insisted on taking photos of me, Hann and Ross and putting them in frames, dotting our smiling faces in every single room. He said this was to keep him on track, so we were always with him even if we weren’t physically beside him. He _loved_ that weird little house.

“Why did you leave?” I asked.

“Too many bad vibes and the area… honestly George, it was too easy for me to score there. And what with everything, with Gabs and everything, I just had to get out,” he waved his hand in the air, like he was waving away the thoughts.

Gabs. I felt my shoulders tighten at the mention of her name. I wanted to immediately ask about her, but I knew that I couldn’t. That was a conversation for later. Later when I had downed so much fucking alcohol no one could blame me for unravelling into a sobbing mess.

“Where’s your new place?” I asked, making a low whistle when he told me the area of London.

It was a fancy area, mostly residential. It was very flush with cash.

“Yeah, most of my neighbours are like fucking lawyers and doctors and have kids. I’m like the weird, crazy neighbour who lives in the odd house at the end of the road with a load of plants, who stinks of spliff and makes too much noise at one in the morning,” he smiled.

“You’d like my new place actually. It’s very modern, very sparse, very… wabi sabi,” he accentuated the words ‘wabi sabi.’

“Sounds pretentious,” I said, offering him another small smile and he grinned back at me, making my heart jump pathetically.

My resolve was slipping. My boundaries were weakening.

“Oh, it is. But it feels like a sanctuary and I feel good there… I feel calm there. Plus mum likes it. She cried the first time she came over because it was so clean and grown-up – she said she was happy I had stopped being a fucking idiot,” he rolled his eyes at that.

“So, have you then? Have you stopped being a fucking idiot?” I asked, which made him laugh properly now.

He was being authentic. Real. Real Matty. My Matty.

Fuck.

‘My Matty’ – I pushed that phrase to the back of my mind. There was no ‘my Matty’ anymore. There couldn’t be.

“I don’t fucking know do I? I’m trying mate. I’m trying to be a good person. It’s hard,” he said.

“It sure is,” I sighed.

It started to rain and we picked up our pace as we walked. The evening was beginning to draw in. London was drowning, but to me it always looked better this way: getting dark, car lights leaving streaky colours in their wake on the wet tarmac. The weird peace of the rain falling mixed with the noise of city life. Everything was softened. Hushed. Almost beautiful in a strange, sad, dreamy way.

We stopped at a pedestrian crossing waiting for the lights to change. I looked at Matty. The red stoplights spilled across his face. He was lighting another cigarette (his own this time), his eyes cast low as he focused on the task at hand. His hands were shielding the flame of the lighter from the damp weather. His cheeks hollowed slightly as he inhaled.

The post-work rush hour crowd was surrounding us, but he was lit up. He was illuminated. Gentle shadows fell beneath his features. My breathing hitched. He was fucking beautiful. I felt dizzy. I slowly let out a breath I wasn’t even aware I had been holding. Something shifted inside me and it was subtle, but I felt it all the same.

Matty exhaled a cloud of smoke and pulled his hood up against the rain and then he took the cigarette out of his mouth and handed it to me. Another familiar gesture.

My movements were reflexive. I accepted it, our fingers brushing together slightly. His eyes flickered to my hand briefly and to my eyes, then away quickly. Nervous energy radiated off him. I brought the smoke to my lips, not caring that the tip was slightly damp from his mouth and I took a drag.

The traffic lights changed and interrupted the moment.

We were almost at the pub and my heart sank at what was to come. We would drink and we would allow the alcohol to loosen our lips and we would drag up the past and we would probably remember why us not speaking was a good thing.

He would leave first (as usual) and go back to his fancy ‘wabi sabi’ house, and I would stay and get drunk and cry down the phone to Adam until he came to collect me and brought me home. He would put me to bed and I would wake up the next morning, sad and alone, with a glass of water and a basin by my bed in case I puked.

I didn’t want it to happen like this, but it felt inevitable.

As the people around us pushed forward to cross the road, we followed them together. I handed the cigarette back to him. He took a few more drags, offered it to me again. I declined this time and he put it out on top of a nearby rubbish bin and threw it in.

We continued walking in silence.

We reached the pub a few minutes later. It was one we had frequented a lot during our youth. More memories held within its walls like whispers, and as I stood back to let Matty go in ahead of me, I cast one look back at the wet city.

My emotions were buzzing. My heart was yearning for my youth when things were just easier. When Matty and I were just easier.

I was desperately, desperately sad.

I allowed the full extent of my feelings to wash over me for a second, closing my eyes and tilting my head back so the rain fell on my face. The wet sounds of London filling my ears. Sirens in the distance.

I opened my eyes. There were no stars in the sky, but then again, you could never see stars in the city. Probably because there was never any fucking hope here.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and I composed a quick text to Hann (who wrote back immediately):

> **George:** I fucked up.  
>  **Hann:**?  
>  **George:** I’m still in love with him.

I followed Matty inside.

******


	16. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Full disclosure before you read this chapter: I have zero issues with Gabby IRL. I just needed her for plot development. This chapter has been brought to you by election-induced anxiety. I'm not even from the States, but my thoughts are with any of you guys who are currently riding out the heavy vibes <3\. Thanks again for all your support on this fic, I appreciate you all so much. I'll be back on Saturday with another update. This chapter picks up post-rehab.

**Chapter 12**

“Would you just listen to me? I told you, I’m _working_ with her. That’s why she’s been texting me.”

Matty’s voice cut through the music playing in my headphones and I frowned.

“That’s not what I said. Jesus Christ. How am I supposed to communicate with you when you’re committed to misunderstanding me babe?”

I turned the volume up on my laptop, hoping it would drown out the voices that were starting to rise in the kitchen.

“I told you, it’s not like that.”

Matty’s voice was getting steadily louder and more annoyed.

Bass thrummed in my eardrums.

“Fine, fucking take my phone then – see for yourself.”

More bass.

“And what about that dickhead you were posing with on Instagram last week?”

Crescendo building.

“I don’t need this fucking shit right now!”

And then the drop. But the drop didn’t make me happy like it usually did when I was playing with beats.

“I’m telling you _it wasn’t like that_.”

“Then what the FUCK was it like Matty?”

A female voice now. They started shouting at each other properly.

I slipped my headphones off and shot a tortured look at Hann who was sitting across from me. He mouthed the words “let’s go” and nodded his head towards the door, flinching as something was knocked over in the kitchen. It wouldn’t be too long before the fight progressed up here to the studio’s little sitting area. If we were lucky, it would fizzle out before the two of them reached anything valuable.

I quickly grabbed my things and followed Hann into the sound-proof control room. Ross looked up at us as we entered. Our faces said it all.

“Fucking _hell_ , again? Are you fucking kidding me?” he said.

I shook my head, looking for a space to put my stuff down and trying desperately to squash my feelings (my many, _many_ feelings) behind a neutral poker face. I was fucking miserable. I had found hell on earth and surprisingly it was in North London, where I was stuck in a recording studio with no fucking escape while the man I was desperately in love with argued with his girlfriend.

Girlfriend, _ugh._

I still couldn’t even _think_ the word without wanting to walk into oncoming traffic.

“This is not normal,” Ross was saying. He waved his hand in the direction of the door.

“I don’t know why they don’t just break up. Especially given his state of mind. I mean, is this even healthy for him?” Ross looked at me like I had the answer to this question.

He gave me a withering look when I didn’t volunteer any information.

“I feel like we’re living with parents who are about to get divorced. I’m fucking sick of walking on eggshells all the time,” he scrunched up his face.

“I give them another hour, tops. Then they’ll stop screaming at each other. Oh fuck,” said Adam, sighing deeply. “I left my tea out there. Bollocks.”

“Yeah, but then we’re on to them making up and fucking for the next three hours,” Ross said glumly, ignoring Adam’s pained expression at his missing brew.

“It’s the sickening love buzz that follows the fight that really fucks me off. It’s painful to watch,” Ross added.

Ah yes, the love buzz. They would argue, make up and then be all over each other with kisses and in-jokes and… I silently reminded myself to breathe. I could feel my eye twitching from stress.

Adam must have sensed the fact that I was on the verge of having a breakdown, because he did his best to change the subject:

“So I guess we can discount emo lord out of any work that needs to actually get done today. How about we focus on tracking some of those guitar bits G?” He asked me and I nodded, grateful for the distraction.

I was trying my hardest not to think about what Ross had just said regarding “fucking for three hours.”

We had been in the studio for a good few weeks now working on various bits and pieces and trying to collectively get our heads together enough to actually finish our third album. While we had been working on stuff during our tours, there was still a lot of work that needed to be done in order for us to create a full album. The process had been interrupted by the events of the last few months and at the moment all we had been doing was jamming together and refining scraps of songs here and there.

No significant work had started to take place just yet (not helped in part by the fact that Matty was way too preoccupied with his relationship to do anything) and I was starting to get anxious about it. I was terrified that this was it – that I had finally hit a creative wall and I would never make anything new or cool ever again. We had finished a few songs, but we still needed more and they all had to be absolute pure fucking bangers if this album was to have any hope.

Adam kept reassuring me that my ability to create music was not “broken” just because we had taken an unexpected break. He said my brain was probably just still trying to process everything that had happened over the past few months. And _a lot_ had happened.

Matty had gone to rehab and gotten clean. I had spent a few weeks in the countryside “convalescing” as my sister called it. Although the whole point of convalescing was to recover from whatever made you need to convalesce in the first place and truthfully, I hadn’t recovered at all. I felt like I was hanging on by a thread. My feelings for Matty were consuming me slowly. Soon there’d be nothing left inside me.

Soon I would become a hollow shell and I’d collapse in on myself at some inopportune moment, like during an interview or while I was on stage. It was not ideal.

I had started to adopt Matty’s previous habit of telling everyone I was “fine” when I was absolutely not remotely “fine” in the slightest. My version of “fine” meant that I was so fucking heartbroken, it felt like I was limping around, dragging my heavy heart in the dirt behind me like a dead weight. Only Adam really knew the full extent of my pain. He was the only person I could talk to about it.

But everyone had been through it in recent weeks. Ross had enjoyed a short-lived but deeply intense love affair with the previously mentioned actress and was currently nursing his own wounds (hence was he was absolutely allergic to Matty’s public displays of affection at the moment) and Adam?

Adam had somehow managed to take care of all of us during this time in the unique way that only he could, although lately he was looking fucking exhausted (my fault mostly… probably. Definitely).

I was just about to offer to go and buy him a fresh cup of tea from the café down the street if he wanted one when the door opened and Matty walked in. Our conversation died immediately and we all looked at him cautiously.

“Well she’s fucked off, hasn’t she,” He said, voice prickling with irritation.

He slumped down into the empty chair beside me and ran a hand down his face. The rest of us shifted awkwardly.

“Georgie, please tell me you have some smokes because I am _gagging_ for a fag,” he said then, turning to look at me.

I passed my bag to him. He rummaged around in it until he found them.

Never able to stand an awkward silence, Ross started rambling on about some film he had found on Netflix the other night and how it had blown his mind. I tried my best to follow Ross’s words but I was _acutely_ aware of Matty sitting beside me.

“Quitting heroin is hard, but I swear relationships are fucking harder,” Matty muttered as he lit a cigarette and took a drag. He raked a hand through his hair and tilted his head back, blowing smoke at the ceiling.

He offered the cigarette to me and I took it. I was deeply conscious of the way his fingers touched mine as I handed it back to him. Shivers skittered up my arm. I realised how starved I was for his touch. Pathetic.

“When is Waughy getting here?”

Matty’s question roused me from my focus on the way my skin was responding to him.

“He’s not coming in until this evening – he has a family thing. Seeing as how I live here now, I said I’d stay to throw some ideas around with him,” I said.

It was true, I had been pretty much living in the studio these days. Work was the only thing that was keeping me sane and I would honestly sleep in the control room if I could. Anything to avoid going back to my sad, empty house where I was alone and all I did was fucking hurt and ache for Matty.

“Are you going to stick around?” I asked him and he shook his head.

“Nah mate, not tonight. I’m supposed to be going to some stupid event with Gabs, although fuck knows if that will happen now,” he sighed again and took his phone out of his pocket.

The screen was blank. She hadn’t messaged him. She had just stormed out and left him here. He put the phone back into his pocket and slumped down even further in his seat.

Gabs. Also known as Gabby. Also known as Matty’s _girlfriend_.

Gabby had been the blonde hanging off his arm the night of that awards ceremony when Matty and I had run into each other in the men’s bathroom and Matty had whispered those heart-twisting words into my ear: _I. Can’t._

Gabby had, apparently, been on the scene on and off since well before Matty had ended up in rehab, but none of us knew about her until she was just suddenly _there_ when he got home. When I had realised her connection to Matty when he re-introduced her properly to us, I had to make a lame excuse and leave immediately because I thought my head would fucking explode if I stayed in the same room as her.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like her (I didn’t know her, nor was I really making any attempt to get to know her), it was mostly just that I couldn’t understand her sudden presence in our lives, in _his_ life. Where had she even come from? What was her purpose? What the fuck did he seen in her? And, most importantly, _why was she still fucking here all these months later?_

I also couldn’t wrap my head around the fucked-up dynamic they had. All they did was fight and bicker. They didn’t agree on anything. Every week they seemed to be arguing about something. When they were together any tiny thing could spark a massive row. It was like, as Ross had said, living with two parents who were about to get a divorce. And yet, in recent interviews when he was asked about her after they went ‘Instagram official’, Matty would get all soft and say he loved her and I would feel my insides shrivel up even more.

I hated it and I hated myself for how I felt about it.

Matty and I hadn’t talked about Gabby. We also hadn’t talked about his time in rehab, the events directly preceding his time in rehab or about anything that was of any actual importance.

While he was much more relaxed around me now since rehab (he was back to hugging me, laughing with me, even being ever-so-slightly vulnerable around me), there was still this unspoken thing that the events which transpired between us were not to be discussed.

I fucking _needed_ to talk to him. I knew I did. My feelings were eating me alive, but I was also terrified. Terrified to bring it up. Terrified of the inevitable rejection and terrified that I would somehow cause Matty to block me out again. And so a silent agreement had been struck. We would forget the depth of everything that had been simmering between us just before things had gotten messed up.

We wouldn’t talk about it.

But it was still wearing me away and the longer I stayed silent, the worse it was watching him fawn all over a woman who I knew would never, ever appreciate him in the same way I did.

I was doing my best to shove my feelings down as deeply inside myself as I could. Matty’s recovery had to be the most important thing now. I couldn’t be selfish and talk about my feelings. It just wasn’t the right time. I had let my feelings cloud my mind and drive me to the point of insanity before and I had missed the signs of Matty’s addiction the first time around. I would _never_ forgive myself if that happened again. I _couldn’t_ let it happen again.

We got lucky this time and we were able to keep Matty safe from any major harm, but next time? If I missed the signs again we might not have such a positive outcome. It was, I told myself, easier for me to be miserable if I kept him safe from harm. Because that was all I wanted for Matty: To protect him. For him to be safe.

So that’s why I would sit in interviews, a fake smile plastered on my face to hide the fact that I was fucking dying inside while Matty spoke about Gabby. And I would feel sick every time her name came up in casual conversation between the two of us.

And her name came up a lot unfortunately because she had recently moved in with him.

She was the one who was holding him close if he was upset. She was the one who was making him tea and sitting with him in the kitchen in the mornings. She was the one who was kissing those soft lips of his.

I was not okay. I was not okay. I was not okay.

“Georgie, do you want a brew?” Adam’s voice brought me back to the present moment.

I nodded and went to stand up to go to the now-safe kitchen with Hann and Ross but Matty cleared his throat.

“Actually G, would you mind staying? I’ve written something I want you to take a look at,” he said.

Hann gave me a worried look but I fixed my fake smile in place and tried to sound enthusiastic (and not like I was in immense psychological pain) when I said: “Sure mate, what have you been working on?”

Ross and Adam left and closed the door behind them. Instantly Matty and I were enveloped by the silence of the control room. It was like someone had sucked all the sound out of the air. The only noise was my heart thudding in my chest as Matty got up and walked over to his bag, looking for something.

I sat back down and lit another cigarette just for something to do with my hands. I was nervous and I wasn’t sure why.

He came back and handed me his black Moleskine notebook. It was open on a page.

“I… I wrote a lot. While I was away,” he tugged at his sleeve and looked around the room and bit his lip. He was anxious about showing me this.

“Be honest,” he said then, although his tone of voice suggested that he was a bit afraid of me being fully honest.

I looked at the page. The words were surprisingly neat for Matty’s handwriting. Normally his writing was busy and looked like it had been scrawled down in a hurry, like his hand couldn’t keep up with his brain.

_And all I do is sit and think about you,  
if I knew what you’d do.  
Collapse my veins wearing beautiful shoes –  
it’s not living if it’s not with you._

I looked up at him and he knew what I was thinking:

_Is this about…?_

_Yes, don’t ask me about it._

_Okay._

“I hear it as having this kind of tune,” he rushed then, as I continued reading about ‘Danny’ (who was clearly Matty) and his struggles.

“Fuck, I need a guitar.”

He ran out of the room and came back a few seconds later holding one of Hann’s. Hann was going to have a fit. It was virtually impossible to piss Hann off – he was like a living saint. One of the few things that drove him absolutely crazy, however, was when we messed with his guitars but Matty didn’t seem to care as he started fiddling with the pegs, changing the tuning.

And then he started playing a few chords and my sadness and anxiety evaporated when I found myself instantly picking up a rhythm on the surface of his notebook.

It was good. It was better than good.

A warm feeling spread in my chest as I tried a couple of rhythm variations around Matty’s chords. This was the type of shit you could imagine hearing on the radio.

We looked at each other when the tune ran its course. He put down the guitar and walked over to me. I had the half-smoked cigarette in my mouth. He leaned forward and I froze as he took it from between my lips. He studied me intently as he put it between his own and took a deep inhale.

“It’s something right?” he asked, breathing out the question on a cloud of smoke.

I nodded and his face broke out into a huge grin. He punched the air and yelled: “Get stuck in!”

“Oh it’s something,” I said quietly.

******

“Yes, I am going to Manchester this weekend. Because my mate has written a book and I’m going to his launch party. I’ve told you already, you’re more than welcome to come…”

I stirred in my sleep.

“Babe, you have to stop this. Why can’t you just trust me? I apologised for that already. You know that I love you…”

I cracked open one eye. I was in the studio, in the control room. I had fallen asleep.

“I told you. I’m in the studio with George. Yes, again… well I would put him on but he’s asleep. It’s the fucking truth. Jesus Christ babe…”

The door was open and I could hear Matty in the hall, pacing up and down. I glanced at my watch, it was just after 1:30am.

After he had played me the start of what would eventually become ‘It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)’ a few weeks ago, Matty and I had banged out some truly incredible work together. It was if he had been creatively reborn. Matty had written a lot while he was in rehab and the stuff he had brought back was lyrically amazing. His passion for creation was also igniting my own inspiration and we were sparking off each other in a completely different way. In a matter of weeks we had gone from an album that was feeling like a dud to one that I was actually pretty fucking excited about.

We had been spending all our waking hours together in the studio capitalising on this creative momentum and that had resulted in Matty and I spending more and more time alone together as we worked on production and building atmosphere into what we had already recorded.

Tonight we were tweaking the bones of a song that gave me chills every time I listened to it: ‘How to Draw.’ It still needed something else though and that’s why Matty and I were still here, surrounded by synths, fag butts and half-empty cups of tea.

“Yeah well I shouldn’t have to explain that. You should just trust me. Oh for fuck’s sake. For fuck’s…”

I heard a long, frustrated sigh in the corridor. Matty came back into the room a few seconds later, jumping slightly when he realised I was awake.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.

He threw his phone down carelessly onto the sound board, not caring if he cracked his screen.

“You okay?” I asked, sensing that he was a bit pissed off. The phone call obviously hadn’t been a good one.

He bit his lip and opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but then stopped himself.

“Smoke?” I asked and he nodded to that.

I got over and went to my coat finding another box of fags. I placed them in front of him. He laughed when he opened the box and realised they were all spliffs.

“Spliff for your thoughts?” I asked and I knew that if I closed my eyes in that moment, I’d be back on that sweltering hot tour bus somewhere in Arizona.

A tactile memory dragged itself slowly through my mind: Matty’s hands on my face as he took my headphones off and his lips against mine. The heat of our bare skin. The way he had brought those delicious dark eyes up to meet my own and had said: _I’ve always wondered what you taste like._

Don’t think about it.

_Breathe George._

“Now who taught you this trick love?” Matty smiled at me.

He pulled out a spliff and examined it like he was some kind of connoisseur.

“I call that a Healy special,” I said and he laughed at that.

“This conversation is starting to sound oddly familiar,” he said, putting the spliff in his mouth and lighting it.

Matty was clean except for spliff, cigarettes, alcohol, sex and, by his own admission, ridiculously overpriced takeaway coffees. He said that kicking drugs had devastated him, but he reasoned that if he could use all these other things without any major issues then he would. Because life was too short to be “completely fucking miserable” in his own words. It was Matty logic at its finest, but if it worked for him, then it worked and who were we to argue?

I helped myself to a spliff too and we sat in silence for a few minutes just smoking until Matty spoke:

“I’m struggling Georgie. I know I put on a brave face, but I’m not as okay as I let on.”

I took another drag of my spliff and considered his words. I was aware that this was one of those moments where I needed to be very, very careful about my response. Matty was being vulnerable and saying the wrong thing would get his defences up.

“That’s okay though mate,” I said. “What you went through Matty… you don’t just get over that straight away. It takes time. You don’t need to put this pressure on yourself to be ‘on’ or happy all the time. I get it. We all get it.”

He nodded.

“She just expects me to be a changed man. To be fixed. And when I’m not, she gets pissed off at me,” he said quietly.

Oh no.

I swallowed and he looked at me then, his eyes searching mine. He expected me to say something.

Fuck.

“Given that I can’t even hold down a long-term relationship with a house plant right now, I’m not going to comment on you and Gabby, because I literally have no understanding of what it’s like,” I started.

This was my way of saying, “For the love of God, please don’t fucking ask me about your missus because I might have to eat my own eyes.”

“Come on Georgie,” he rolled his eyes at me. He really wanted my help.

I took a deep breath.

“Okay, look. All of us hear you arguing on the regular and I guess… I guess we’re all just wondering if you’re actually happy?” I said tentatively.

“Go on...” he said.

“Matty… you deserve someone who sees you mate. Sees you for the great person that you are,” I said.

He was silent and I shifted awkwardly in my seat, suddenly feeling very exposed. Was that an appropriate thing to say to your best friend if you were in love with him? I didn’t even fucking know any more.

“You see me George.”

His words caught me off-guard.

“I do,” I said after a few seconds. “And I just want you to know that I’m here for you. Fully here. No matter what is going on in your head. I can take it, whatever it is, as long as it’s the truth. Please promise me that you won’t lie to me again Matty. None of this ‘I’m fine’ bullshit when you’re clearly not.”

I felt like a hypocrite given that I was currently using the “I’m fine” bullshit on everyone around me, but if Matty had noticed it, he didn’t say.

He looked around the room and then his dark eyes landed back on me. He smiled sadly.

“I really, truly wish I could see myself the way you see me Georgie. If I could, I probably wouldn’t hate myself so much. I probably wouldn’t feel the need to numb out constantly.”

He opened his arms wide and pulled me into an awkward hug given that we were both sitting down. I wrapped my arms around him as best I could, careful not to accidentally burn him with my spliff. My heart was soaring in my chest, but my mind felt heavy and sad. The smell of his aftershave made me feel half-drunk.

“You look at me like I’m something great, someone worthy,” he said, pulling back ever-so-slightly so he could look at my face.

We were so close now.

His eyes dropped to my lips as I said the words: “That’s because you are.”

And I knew, as soon as I said it, that I would follow Matty forever. I would trail along behind him wherever he went until the end of time just in case he lost his way. Just in case he needed my help. I would follow him and I would keep him safe.

The air became charged around us. His eyes slowly moved up to mine. He looked at me and I felt magnetised to him. Like I was being drawn into a very intimate moment that I never wanted to end. My mouth went dry at the proximity of him. I wanted him more than anything.

And then, right when something could have happened, he looked away and released me.

My heart plummeted. I remembered his words from that awful, awful night in his kitchen: “ _It didn’t mean anything to me anyway. You were just a comma in a very, very, very long sentence sweetheart.”_

Ouch.

He took another drag of his spliff and I noticed that his hand was trembling. He caught me looking and quickly stood up and went to listen to ‘How to Draw’ for the millionth time that night.

The moment was gone.

We smoked three more spliffs each and by the time Adam and Ross arrived the next morning, Matty and I were passed out asleep in the control room (me in my chair and Matty directly on the floor). But we had a fully-formed version of a new song. ‘How to Draw/Petrichor’ had been born and when Adam and Ross listened to it unbeknownst to us, they were so impressed they stayed quiet and let us sleep.

******


	17. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm back with another update and we're starting to head for the end my loves. There are five more chapters to go after this one and I would like to apologise in advance for the emotional rollercoaster headed your way (I'm a tiny bit ahead in my writing and even I'm like "WTF?!"). As always, thank you for the support. I so appreciate every comment, kudo and view you send my way, you really are the best! I'll update again during the week. Enjoy this chapter which is mostly pure filth. Happy Saturday! :) <3.

**Chapter 13**

“Get someone you love? Get someone you need? FUCK THAT GET MONEY!”

Matty screamed the lyrics into his mic like he was trying to scream his frustration out. The crowd loved it and mistook it for passion, but I knew he was fucked off. I wasn’t sure why, but I just knew.

We were on stage. It was one of the remaining nights of a tour that had taken us all the way around the world. Our latest album, although technically it was old now, _A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships_ had surprised us all when it was met with critical acclaim. People called it our best work yet. They were comparing it to Radiohead’s masterpiece _OK Computer_ , which made Matty overjoyed and also turned him into an anxious wreck for a month after he had heard about it.

It was still hard for me to believe that the album had turned into such a significant body of work when I thought back to how stressed out and worried I had been about it initially. Maybe that old saying was true – that the best art is always born from struggle. Who fucking knew? But either way we were proud of it and we were proud of what we had achieved together, especially given the difficulties of that time in our collective history.

“You know, I honestly think that’s one of the most profound things I’ve ever written,” Matty was speaking directly to the crowd as the song finished.

“Fuck that get money. I mean, that’s deep…”

The crowd cheered.

“If you love someone but all they do is hurt you and wreck your head. If they can’t really see you, and I mean SEE you _see_ you, right? Seriously, just fuck that and get money. Do you know what I mean?”

More cheers.

Adam came over to my kit and picked up a bottle of water from the stash beside me. He shot me a look and then nodded his head in the direction of Matty. I read his look as asking: _Is he okay?_

I just shrugged because I honestly didn’t know. What I did know, however, was that bringing Gabby on the final leg of tour with us had been a bad idea. All she and Matty had done for the past few weeks was fight. It was _draining_. Hearing Matty’s on-stage banter, I had a feeling another fight would be incoming as soon as we finished the show.

In recent weeks Matty had been spending less time with her and more time with me, and this fact alone seemed to make her even harder to deal with. It also made me fucking miserable.

Last year, when Matty had been blocking me out, all I wanted was for him to let me back in. And now that we were finally back to that place where we had been before everything had gotten messed up, my mental health was taking a beating. He was constantly with me and his continued presence in my life was what I both craved and hated. It was driving me crazy because Matty, the object of my affections, was so fucking close to me now and yet I couldn’t have him. I could never have him. He had made that perfectly clear many, many times given his past behaviour.

It was fucking _hell on earth_ listening to him dissect each and every disagreement he was having with Gabby. I just wanted to grab him and shake him and scream: “I LOVE YOU, WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LOVE ME TOO?” at him until I went hoarse. But I couldn’t do that.

And I was also terrified to put any space between us because I had promised myself that I would keep Matty safe. I would stay on my guard and make sure that he really was “fine” when he said he was.

I was physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually exhausted. My jeans were hanging off me because I was losing weight. I could barely eat. I was having trouble sleeping. Adam said the light behind my eyes had gone out. He said he was worried about me and that I needed to understand Matty was a grown man and responsible for himself regardless of how I felt about him. And I knew Adam was right (Adam was always fucking right), but I also knew that Adam didn’t carry the crushing weight of guilt that I had been lugging around with me ever since that awful night in Matty’s kitchen.

Flashback of empty Xanax bottles. Flashback of Matty standing in the doorway. The memory of his scrawny, shaking frame in my arms as I held him close.

_Breathe George._

I was falling apart and I knew it. Fuck, everyone knew it. Ross and Adam were both constantly asking me if I was okay, to which I would lie and say, “I’m fine.” The only person who hadn’t seemed to notice was Matty which was ironic. I saw him so clearly and yet he just couldn’t see me. He would never really _see_ me. At least not in the way that I wanted him to.

During one particular come-to-Jesus style talk with Adam (and there had been a lot of them lately), Hann in his infinite wisdom had said that somewhere over the course of this year, Matty and I had swapped places. Now I was the one that was drowning and in need of help, albeit for different reasons. I was the one they were worried about. Hann had gotten a bit choked up and told me that he couldn’t watch me sacrifice myself and my mental health anymore. He couldn’t watch me set myself on fire for someone who didn’t even feel the warmth of it. Someone who was completely oblivious to it.

Adam Hann was a fucking saint and a really, really, really good friend. But I was too far gone for his worried words to really have much of an impact on my mixed-up state of mind.

I had reached the point where I literally felt diseased by my love for Matty. I would _kill_ just to have a taste of him again. And just when I thought the overwhelming intensity of my feelings couldn’t get any worse, it always did. It would wash over me in a wave every time Matty smiled at me or touched me and I would get that hit of serotonin I so desperately craved.

I was an addict, just a different kind.

I took the breather between songs to quickly stretch out my arms and shoulders and rotate my wrists a few times.

“What does your sign say?” Matty was sitting on the edge of the stage now, shielding his eyes against the glare of the lights.

“I skipped work for this?” he read a fan’s sign aloud and laughed. “Oh yeah? Where do you work love?”

Someone yelled: “STARBUCKS!”

“Ross used to be a barista, didn’t you mate?” Matty looked at Ross.

“Yeah, in a former life. They beat the training into me – I still have dreams about making flat whites,” Ross said into his mic and the crowd cheered at that too.

“I tried to be one, a barista. But I got demoted ‘cause I was constantly fucked up on the job. Ross was never fucked up on the job – he was a good employee. I spilled coffee on a bird once, it wasn’t a good vibe,” said Matty.

I grabbed my drumsticks and did a classic ‘ba-dum-tish!’ on my kit. Matty looked over his shoulder at me and laughed. He winked at me.

My brain went: _I love you. I love you. I love you._

I loved him and I had loved him for all this fucking time and I didn’t know what to do with this information anymore. And I both wanted to be rid of my love for Matty but to also drown in it and die happy.

The weird cocktail of anxiety, tension and heartache welled up inside me then. I wanted to scream. Everything was getting on top of me these past few months. I was so fucking tired. And fuck, my head was a mess. I needed a drink or a smoke or to slam my face into a concrete wall until I couldn’t fucking think or feel anything anymore.

“Right, I guess we should play another song. Otherwise I’ll just stay here talking and you’d all be well pissed off spending so much money on a ticket just to hear me talk absolute bollocks for two hours,” said Matty getting up and dusting off his trousers.

He counted us in and we continued playing.

******

After the show everyone wanted to go for drinks, but I just wanted to be alone. I couldn’t physically bear the thoughts of sitting in a bar and trying to be happy and sociable. I just wanted to go back to the hotel, crawl into bed and let the emptiness of sleep wash over me, offering me some kind of peace from these buzzing thoughts and feelings.

I felt burnt out. My love for Matty was crushing me. It was breaking me into a thousand tiny pieces. And still I couldn’t let it go. I just had so many fucking feelings. I thought about how easy my life would be if I could just rid myself of them. If I could just press my hands into my chest, prise open my ribcage and remove my own heart. If I could just reset the centre of myself and start again without my heart. Be fully empty inside so I could be normal again. So I could feel like an actual human again instead of this weird, wounded thing. Because that’s what I was – a weird, wounded non-person. People couldn’t tell what was up with me to just look at me, but they could sense it emanating from me.

I wasn’t a whole person anymore. Part of me was missing. Matty had taken some essential part of me that night in his old bed and he couldn’t give it back to me. He had changed it and it didn’t fit inside anymore like it was supposed to. He had left a mark on me. That part of me was completely and utterly his.

All I wanted was to be free of this pain. I just wanted to be happy again.

Happiness, fuck, there’s a concept.

I was burning alive and the only person who could see the full extent of it was Adam. Ross knew something was off with me, Jamie too, but neither of them knew exactly what they were witnessing. Adam, however, had seen the whole sorry show.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come Georgie?” Ross was standing in front of me but I wasn’t paying any attention to him.

I was too busy looking at Matty and Gabby over his shoulder. They were arguing yet again. I was trying to figure out what they were arguing about this time. She crossed her arms defensively. Matty threw his eyes up to a heaven he didn’t believe in. She pointed at him aggressively. He gesticulated wildly.

“George, are you alright?”

I jumped as Ross reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. I looked at it like it was some abstract thing. I could barely feel it.

“Y-yeah, yes. I’m fine mate,” I said.

I took a deep breath and scolded myself for acting like a weirdo.

Ross raised an eyebrow at me.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m just exhausted. I’m going to go get some sleep. The jet lag has been brutal,” I said, lying through my teeth.

Ross gave me a sceptical look, but I quickly made my excuses to the others and slipped away. I was not in the right frame of mind for forced socialisation tonight. Adding alcohol into the mix would just be a bad, bad idea.

The hotel was some standard luxury place, but after a while on the road all of these beautiful buildings had the tendency to just blur into one continuous experience. I frowned at my own sense of privilege as I had that thought. I had barely been back in my room for twenty minutes where there was a knock on my door.

I was sitting on the bed, my chest filled with fresh, vivid pain. Pain in technicolour. I thought about ignoring the knock, but then I heard his voice:

“George, you there?”

It was Matty and he sounded serious. He was probably showing up to run through his latest fall-out with Gabby. I sighed sadly and forced myself to get up, reminding myself of my promise – that I would always be there for Matty and a promise was a promise. Even if it was difficult for me to show up, I had to. I had to keep him safe.

I opened the door. Matty looked agitated. He ran a hand through his hair and bit his lip. He was processing something.

“Mate, are you – ”

I didn’t get to finish my question because before I fully understood what was happening, Matty had slammed into me like a force of nature. I was so stunned, I just let him push me back into the room without breaking the kiss. He kicked the door closed behind him as we moved inside properly.

I had five blissful seconds of Matty’s lips against mine before the anxiety and dread arrived and I quickly pulled away from him.

“What… Fuck, Matty, what is going on?” I said, breathless and confused.

I purposely took a step away from him so I could put some space between us. My hands automatically went to my head, as if that would somehow magically help me make sense of what was happening.

Matty took a step towards me and I immediately took another one away from him. I put up my hand in a ‘stop’ gesture. I needed to think. He had a tortured expression on his face.

My mind was mess of conflicting thoughts and feelings all crashing into each other.

“What is going on?” I eventually managed to repeat my question.

My voice was shaking. I felt like I was having some kind of out of body experience, like I had somehow astrally projected to the other side of the room.

“I can’t stop thinking about you George. I can’t stop. I just…” he sighed.

We looked at each other. He ran a hand down his face.

“I just need you George,” he said.

My heart cracked at that. So that’s what this was. I forced myself to take a deep breath.

“You need me, but you don’t want me Matty. There’s a difference,” I said, choosing my words carefully.

He shook his head.

“No… Fuck. I mean I want you too. George… my want for you is driving me so fucking crazy it’s become a solid need. I can’t stop thinking about you lately. And I know you think about me too. I can see it. I can fucking _feel_ it. George… Please…”

Flashback of that night in my bedroom. Big light switched on. _I can’t, I can’t_. Matty’s hands wrapped around me. _It’s okay. You can. Please George…_

He took another step towards me tentatively. I didn’t try to stop him this time. I was too preoccupied with my whirling thoughts. He closed the space between us and wrapped his arms around my waist, pressing me into him and then he kissed me again. He kissed me slowly, deeply this time. It was a proper kiss. The kind of kiss that takes up all your attention. That speaks in and of itself.

The kind of kiss that’s reserved for someone you want to sleep with.

The scent of him, the softness of his lips and his t-shirt, the sheer presence of him – it all overwhelmed me and I felt like I was about to die. I had become so fucking addicted to him and it had made me weak. I was too weak to be speaking to Matty about this right now because I knew, as his lips moved against my own, that I would kill for this without a shadow of a doubt. I would literally kill someone with my bare hands if it meant I could keep experiencing this on the regular, keep experiencing him on the regular.

“I didn’t mean it, the night in my house,” he said quietly as our kiss reached a conclusion and we broke apart naturally. He rested his forehead against mine.

I felt the sting of what he was referring to as it replayed itself in my mind: _“It didn’t mean anything to me anyway. You were just a comma in a very, very, very long sentence sweetheart.”_

“I was very fucked up that night. I didn’t know what I was saying. I…”

His eyes were closed, but the quality of his voice changed. I knew he was struggling to translate how he felt into words. Matty was eloquent and a talented writer, but when it came to expressing his own, personal emotions, face-to-face, he struggled.

“Fuck. I can’t stop thinking about you,” he repeated. The sentence was choked out. Waterlogged with emotion.

My mind said: _No._

My mind said: _Think George._

_Breathe George._

_Get out of this fucking room George._

_Jump off the balcony if you have to, just get the fuck out of here. No good can come from this._

_Don’t do this George._

But my heart? My heart was so weak when faced with him. I was so desperate for his touch, his kisses. I ached for it. I was itching for a fix, a hit, whatever he would give me.

My heart said: _Stay._

My heart said: _Don’t fuck this up for us George._

My heart said: _Kiss him._

So I kissed him, slowly and gently at first and then my desire ignited inside me like a match being struck and I kissed him harder. He opened his mouth to me, making a noise in the back of his throat as I brushed my tongue against his.

My hands found their way to his hair, his face, his throat. His arms, still wrapped around my waist, pulled us together, pressing us against each other as tightly as possible. I was aware of the thin line of material that separated our skin as he took a step forward, followed by another, guiding me as he moved us and I didn’t realise what he was doing until the backs of my knees hit the bed.

Our kisses became more frantic, animalistic and primal as I pulled him down with me onto the bed.

I groaned as he broke the kiss, and began moving south, kissing the skin of my neck, sending electric shivers through my entire body. His kisses felt like a unique language only I could understand and I answered him by gently pushing my body up to him to meet his touch:

_Please don’t stop touching me. Please don’t fucking stop._

I gasped as I felt the scrape of his teeth against my throat. I pushed my hips up against him. I was already embarrassingly hard. He moaned against my skin and ground himself against me, his own erection pressing into my lower stomach.

I watched, half dumbstruck as he sat up on top of me and pulled his t-shirt off.

His body looked completely different since the last time I had gotten to see it in this kind of way. He had gained weight and muscle. He was toned. Healthy. I reached a hand up to his chest and ran it down to the top of his waistband. I went to open his belt, but he grabbed my wrists and stopped me.

“Not yet,” he said, voice low.

He pushed my hands back down gently and then reached for my shirt and started unbuttoning it. I looked up at him. He was focused on the task at hand, hair falling gently over one eye. The contrast between his dark hair, dark eyes and dark clothes set against the all-white décor of my hotel room made him look even more handsome. He was so fucking beautiful.

He spread the material of my shirt, revealing my bare chest and stomach and I sat up slightly so he could push it off my shoulders and remove it properly. He flung it onto the floor and looked down at my body, his eyes hooded, his tongue running over his lower lip slightly. I reached out and put my hand under his chin, gently tilting his face back up towards mine. His pupils were dilated with arousal now and I’m sure mine looked the same. I kissed him and more shivers chased down my spine.

He deepened the kiss with his tongue and I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him down with me as I let gravity push me back into the mattress. He broke the kiss with a laugh on our impact. His laughter was like music to my ears.

He shifted his weight over then, so he was lying beside me as opposed to on top of me, and started running his hand over my stomach. I closed my eyes as he undid the button of my jeans and pulled down my fly painfully slowly. I was aching to be touched. His hand slipped into my boxers and I moaned as he grazed over my swollen, throbbing skin. My stomach flipped in such a delicious way it made me feel dizzy. I moaned.

“I love the noises you make,” Matty breathed and brought his mouth towards mine again as he stroked me delicately, lightly.

“I both love and hate how good you are at foreplay,” I said, the end of the sentence giving a way to a long, low _“Fuuuuck”_ as he wrapped his hand around my cock then, squeezing firmly.

“Is this more what you had in mind?” He asked and even with my eyes closed shut as the sensation raced through my body, I could hear the smirk in his voice.

I still couldn’t believe that he was here. That this, that us, was actually happening again. I felt woozy, drunk on the burn of something deep, primitive and wild. I knew I would spend my entire fucking life remembering this moment.

My eyes opened as he removed his hand from my boxers. He pecked my cheek and manoeuvred himself down the bed so he cold pull off my boxers, shoes and trousers.

Once I was completely naked, he paused for a heartbeat, eyes taking in every part of my body. I suddenly felt embarrassed by myself. I had lost so much weight lately. I was aware I looked like a wreck. I wanted to hide. I went to move, to cover myself up in some way but his hand on my hip stopped me.

“Don’t,” he said softly. “Let me see you.”

So I lay there while his eyes swept over me, feeling horribly exposed and vulnerable. I looked at Matty as he took me in, like he was committing me to his memory in exactly the same way I had done to him the first time we were together in this way.

And then, I watched, my breathing hitching and my heart picking up speed in my chest as he moved himself towards me and started kissing his way down my chest, down my stomach, towards my cock.

I couldn’t help the loud moan that spilled from my lips as he took me into his mouth. Pleasure blushed through my body. It was like he knew exactly where to touch me to spark this mind-blowing feeling.

I remembered something Matty had said all of a sudden then. He had said it years ago. That he and I were primitive man in the Platonic sense – one single soul split into two bodies. Of course he knew where to touch me. He knew me better than I knew myself. We were the same.

I looked down at him, marvelling at his beauty, praising heaven or the universe or whatever the fuck was out there for creating such a perfect specimen of itself in human form. And then Matty glanced up at me and our eyes locked and I felt like I could taste eternity in the back of my throat as he took me into his own, past the point of breathing, for a few brief seconds. He was willingly giving up oxygen just to get my cock deeper down his throat. That thought lit something inside me and I knew that I needed to just have him. I had to be inside him. I had to make him feel good. I had to fuck him so slowly and deeply it was agonising, until he was so far gone and half-mad with pleasure he begged me to finish him off. I just wanted him to feel every fucking inch of the love I had for him. For him to drown in it like I was drowning in it.

I fell into infinity as his mouth worked me, existing outside of time. Every so often my mind tried to rationalise what was happening, but my heart immediately silenced it with a wave of love. With a wave of shimmering pleasure. The ‘how’ of this situation did not matter, the only thing that mattered was the ‘why’ and the ‘why’ was that he couldn’t stop thinking about me. That he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

He released me from his mouth to take a breath and was about to go back to the task at hand, but I stopped him by brushing a stray curl out of his face. He looked up at me slightly confused, but then when he saw the look on my face, he understood immediately:

_I need to fuck you._

_Then what are you waiting for?_

He smiled as we swapped positions – Matty laying down on the sheets, on his back, and me quickly unbuckling his belt, unbuttoning his jeans and pulling them off along with his shoes, socks and boxers. And like Matty, I took a moment to just take him in.

He was divine and the sight of him only made my cock throb harder. His thighs had filled out slightly since we last slept together and I had a brief moment where I thought about how much power was in them. How hard could Matty fuck and what would it feel like to have him thrusting deep inside me? The thought alone sent a wave of excitement straight to the core of me.

I smirked as Matty ran a hand down his stomach and then wrapped it around his own cock. He moaned.

“Is this what you want?” I asked, gently covering his hand with my own, stroking him.

He bit his lip at the sensation and I took that as a yes.

I spent some time working him, my own hand over his, controlling the pressure and the pace of the strokes. Precum was beading on his tip and I bent forward and delicately licked it off, making Matty cry out and push his hips up.

I took him into my mouth, delighting in the sounds he was making now, but I knew he was ready. I could sense it. A few more passes with my tongue until he was panting and gripping at my hair and I knew it was time.

I got up and went to my bag and found the tube of lube I had started carrying with me ever since the first night we had fucked. The only person I was having sex with these days was myself and my solo sessions, as always, featured Matty. I always kept lube in my luggage (and my bedside table at home) in the hopes that one day I’d get to recreate that night with him. And here we were.

A thought popped up in my head as I made my way back to bed then and it was a thought I really didn’t want to have at that moment: Gabby. Did she know where he was tonight? How many times has she gotten to see him like this? Can she take care of him in the same way that I can? Can she fuck him better than I can?

I had a brief stab of guilt in my heart at what I was doing, but I also knew that I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t say no to this. I couldn’t.

“George? Please…” Matty’s moans brought me back to the present moment.

He was squirming on the bed.

“I want you. Please, please, give it to me,” he said, face flushed.

He was so incredibly beautiful.

And I knew then that there was no turning back now. I was about to fuck him and Gabby would be the furthest thing from his mind. He would orgasm hard and I would come inside him and fill him with nothing but thoughts of me. Because I loved him.

I loved him. I loved him. I loved him.

I slicked up my fingers with lube and wasn’t prepared for the fact that Matty literally pushed himself onto my hand, moaning loudly at the sensation. He really, really wanted this. He wanted me. I felt faint and I was pretty sure every drop of blood in my body was now in my cock.

I worked him with my fingers, until he was almost sobbing with pleasure and then I started to slick up my cock. Matty turned over onto his stomach and grabbed a pillow to prop up his hips. And then he said something that made me lose all rational thought:

“I want you inside me as deeply as possible.”

He spread his legs and I lined myself up against him. He looked over his shoulder at me and I caught the prefect, beautiful moment he felt me sliding inside him. His eyes fluttered closed, his mouth dropped open and he made a gorgeous sound from deep in his chest.

I moaned with him because I had forgotten how intense the feeling was. How fucking incredible it was. Ecstasy flooded into my body and I felt like I was high. I could feel every hair on my body standing to attention. Everything was heightened. I felt like I could speak to the cosmos in that moment.

I could hear music playing somewhere far away outside. The noise of glasses being clinked somewhere. Matty’s gasping breaths as I pushed in deeper. And then his strained voice:

“Deeper, _fuck George_ , deeper.”

I pressed into him as deeply as I could and then I paused to catch my breath, to allow him to get used to me. And then I placed my hands firmly on his hips, I pulled back slowly and started to fuck him. I went painfully slowly at first, making sure every single stroke of my cock hit him exactly where he needed it to.

Matty was much more vocal this time, a testament, maybe, to how badly he wanted it, how badly he fucking needed it and I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. To hold on. My job wasn’t to blow my load inside him immediately. It was to fuck him in a way that left him in no doubt of how much I cared for him. My pleasure was contingent on his. The better he felt, the better I did too. I wanted to give him everything I had until there was nothing left.

I was driving him crazy and I knew I was. He was lost in that space between pleasure and pain, dancing on the edge of it. He had been ready to cum before I even pushed my aching cock into him.

“George, fuck, please,” he moaned and I let out a cry when he took matters into his own hands and slammed his hips back onto mine all of a sudden, messing up my careful rhythm.

“Harder, please, _fucking hell_ ,” he panted.

That did it.

I pulled my hips back and slammed them forward, making him cry out. I picked up the pace and pleasure sparked through every fucking nerve in my body and brain as I moved. The energy in the room changed and became this beautiful thing – it was just me and Matty and our pleasure and nothing else mattered.

He became my sole focus, the nucleus of everything. The centre of my entire fucking world. I wanted to wrap him around everything in my life. I pushed my way into him over and over and over again, like I was a dying man trying to find some kind of relief within him, and maybe I was.

It was getting so hot in the hotel room. I was slick with sweat from the effort of my movements, Matty too. Our bodies moved in unison, both intuitively knowing what was needed and readjusting accordingly. Again a thought surfaced in my pleasure-addled brain: Can she fuck you like I can? Can she literally reach inside you and grab you by the soul like I can? Can she get as deep inside you as I can? Can she make you moan like I can?

His forehead was resting against the mattress now. He had given up trying to support himself a few minutes ago and I knew he was close. I was close as well, but I wasn’t ready yet. I never wanted this moment to be over.

He cried out, an edge of frustration to his voice, as I stopped moving and pulled out of him completely.

“George, what – ” He started, but I gripped his hips and gently, gently, gently moved him onto his back.

Despite the fact that he wasn’t as frail as he had been, he still weighed virtually nothing to me.

“I want to see you,” I said and he reached a hand up to my cheek, drawing me down towards him and something altered.

Matty’s eyes softened and he kissed me. He kissed me like it meant something and my heart exploded in my chest. He pulled back and looked at me, brow slightly creased with concern.

I realised that I was crying.

Fuck.

He brushed a tear off my cheek and his eyes asked me:

_Are you okay?_

And despite the intimacy of our moment, I couldn’t say the words that I needed to say to him. Something stopped me. Maybe it was the fact that I was worried he wouldn’t believe me – that he would think it was just the sex talking. That the sex would remove the authenticity or depth from my feelings for him. Or maybe it was the fear that he would reject me. I was in too deep on every single level. Hearing him reject me would fucking shatter me now.

He was still looking at me. I widened my eyes at him slightly:

 _I’m fine_.

I pushed myself back up and carefully placed his legs on my shoulders. I lined myself up again and he bit his lower lip as I pressed my way back into him. And the sensation was different from this angle and I felt like this was it, I would die where I knelt as his body took me in, squeezing me tightly as I moved.

He felt so, so _fucking_ good. Like every single amazing feeling in life all rolled in to one experience.

My orgasm started to build rapidly. I worked my hips forwards and backwards, building a steady rhythm again. Matty was starting to lose himself beneath me and all I wanted was to get him there, to tip him over the edge, to make him remember that I was better than any fucking drug he could ever, ever take. That I was all he needed.

I wanted to reach inside him and grab his heart in my fist and never fucking let it go.

He was moaning loudly, the bedsheets balled into his fists. He tried to say something but he couldn’t form the words and I went deeper and deeper, as deep as I fucking could to just take him there. To blow his mind.

Harder.

Harder.

He was making noises that weren’t human. My own moans were drowning him out. Our skin was soaked with sweat, hearts beating, breaths ragged and unhinged.

And then he cried: “Fuck, George!” and he came, spasming beneath me, his cock exploding everywhere. And I rode his pleasure as my own peaked and I lost myself completely in the sensation. I couldn’t feel my body as I fell over the edge, burying myself inside him as deeply as I could.

Life went out of focus. My heart shuddered. If I was religious, I probably would have seen god in that moment, but I wasn’t and as I opened my eyes, my entire body glowing, all I could see was Matty.

I saw him. And in that moment, he saw me too.

And I knew that nothing would ever be the same again. Nothing _could_ ever be the same again. This would destroy me. This would be the end of me. And even with that thought, as I allowed myself to fall gently down on top of him and kiss him, I couldn’t help the sense of deep alignment inside me. The part of me that said: _Fuck yes. What a way to die._

We lay together. At one point, Matty got up to go to the bathroom and clean himself up. He came back to bed. We entwined ourselves. Life went on in the hotel. Voices passed in the corridor outside our room. An alarm went off outside. My phone buzzed with a text from Hann. I ignored it.

It buzzed again with another text. I ignored it again.

A fleeting feeling that I remembered settled into my chest as we dozed together in the early hours of the morning.

It was happiness.

I was happy.

******


	18. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I always feel like I repeat myself in these little notes, but I just wanted to say thank you again for all the views and love for this little fic. I'm so delighted that you're enjoying reading it as much as I'm enjoying writing it. In this chapter, we're picking up the morning after the night before... I'll be back at the weekend with another update. Enjoy <3

**Chapter 14**

I woke up the next morning to Ross’s voice.

“Georgie? Hello?”

Sound of a knock against the door to my hotel room.

I slowly opened my eyes and raised my head from my pillow. I was lying on my stomach, sprawled across the double bed. And then the slow, sinking realisation: I was alone. Matty was not here.

A wave of anxiety eclipsed my mind. I scrambled out of bed and looked around. His clothes were gone. His shoes were gone. Everything was gone.

I ran into the bathroom. Nothing.

There was no sign to suggest that he had ever been here, aside from the crumpled, messy bed and the bottle of lube strewn on the floor.

“No, no, no, no,” I breathed, hands going up to my head.

Icy panic was welling up inside me. This was not good.

“George, you in there?” Ross’s voice again followed by another knock on the door.

Where was he? Where the _fuck_ did he go?

“I need to borrow your charger mate. I broke mine again and Hann won’t give me his.”

I went back to the bed and grabbed my phone. Three messages. Two from Hann from last night and one from Matty. It sat there at the top of my inbox, sent at 4:50am this morning. I felt sick as I opened it:

> **Matty:** I shouldn’t have come to your room. It was a mistake. I’m sorry.

“George, hello? Are you alive?” Ross again.

It was a mistake. _Mistake._ The word felt heavy in my mind. Mistake. _I was a mistake._ Even though he told me last night that he couldn’t stop thinking about me, that he didn’t mean the horrible ‘comma’ thing he had said about me before. But now I wasn’t a comma, I was a mistake and that was so much worse. I was a mistake.

Mistake. Mistake. Mistake.

My knees collapsed from under me like someone had hit me. He had done it to me again. Matty had left me. I couldn’t fucking breathe. I had the vague awareness that I was in the clutches of a panic attack. My heart felt like it was trying to slam its way out of my chest. I felt dizzy. I just couldn’t catch my breath.

The knocks on the door got louder and louder to the point where they filled my skull making it hard to think straight. I had a distant feeling that I had been teetering on the edge of a full-on breakdown for months and now it was finally happening. I had been pushed over the edge by Matty’s fucking text. I was in free-fall and there was no coming back from this. _I_ would not come back from this. The terrifying realisation passed through my mind quickly like a shiver, a sigh.

I was shaking.

“George will you let me in? You’re freaking me out mate,” Ross sounded a bit uneasy now.

It took me three attempts before I was able to speak:

“Hann…” My voice sounded alien and strange.

I didn’t feel real.

“Get Hann. I-I need H-Hann.”

When Hann and Ross found me a short while later, I was sitting on the floor exactly where I had fallen earlier, completely naked bar the bed sheet that was wrapped haphazardly around me. I couldn’t speak so I just sat there, staring into space, trying to comprehend what the fuck had just happened. With every breath I took I was becoming more and more aware of the cataclysmic damage that had been done to my heart.

After I had told Ross I needed Hann, he had panicked and tracked him down. Hann, thinking fast not to rouse any suspicion, had gotten a spare key from Jamie, saying that he thought I had food poisoning. He told Jamie and Ross that I had been complaining of a sick stomach last night. Adam Hann was a fucking saint and always had been.

“George? What the fuck is going on. You’re scaring me…” Ross said.

I looked up at him slowly, but I couldn’t take him in. I just did not feel like I was real. I was in shock.

“Ross, mate, can you go talk to Jamie? Tell him it’s clearly food poisoning and to cancel anything G has on today okay?” Hann said, getting down onto his knees in front of me and reinforcing his lie as he did so.

“George?” Ross said my name like a question and I could feel his eyes on me.

I was truly and utterly broken. I knew I wasn’t acting like someone who had food poisoning. I was acting like someone who was on the verge of a psychotic break.

“Ross, please mate. Just go and talk to Jamie okay?” Hann must have shot Ross a look that said: _Don’t ask any questions just fucking leave_ because Ross just nodded then and said: “O-okay, yeah, I… I’ll go talk to Jamie.”

Silence fell as Ross left.

Hann settled in beside me and wrapped an arm around me, but it didn’t bring me any comfort. My heart was collapsing in on itself. I was collapsing into nothing. I was so in love with Matty I was sick. Last night had meant everything to me and yet here I was again, after waking up alone and being branded “a mistake.”

His previous words danced into the forefront of my mind: _“It didn’t mean anything to me anyway. You were just a comma in a very, very, very long sentence sweetheart.”_

I don’t know why I fucking expected anything to have changed. I was such a fucking idiot.

“Did you get my texts from last night?” Hann asked quietly and I shook my head. They were still sitting on my phone unread.

“Gabby was on the war path. They had a row and he just left her standing on the street. She didn’t know where he was. He switched his phone off… She wanted to come and talk to you, but I told her you were sick,” he said and I looked up at him.

Hann had lied for me last night too.

I wanted to ask the question: _How did you know Matty was with me?_

But Adam’s eyes flickered quickly to the bottle of lube on the ground beside the bed. I sighed and put my head in my hands. He rubbed my back comfortingly.

“This is killing you George,” he said quietly and I knew he was right.

I started crying then. My head was an absolute mess. Last night had been so… so fucking _amazing_. Matty had said it himself that he couldn’t stop thinking about me. That he didn’t mean it when he had said those awful words in his kitchen that night many moons ago. So how on earth could he turn around now and say it had been a mistake? It didn’t make any sense. He didn’t know what he was saying.

“I need to talk to Matty,” I said then, suddenly frantic.

I went to stand up but Adam put a hand on my shoulder and gently forced me to stay where I was.

“That’s probably not a good idea mate. Not right now anyway,” Hann said. “Look, how about you just take a day to get your head together? We’ve got no show tonight. There’s nothing on bar one or two interviews and Jamie thinks you’re sick now. So just stay here. Stay here and cry it out if you need to and eat room service. Mental health day, yeah?”

I felt like I was dying.

“I’m going to see if I can get out of work so I can stay with you today. I don’t want you to be on your own,” Hann said, slowly getting to his feet.

“I’ll get Ross to come back to you and keep you company until I get back, alright?”

Hann could clearly sense how damaged my head was right now and didn’t want me to do something stupid like talk to Matty. Or throw myself off the fucking balcony.

I nodded sadly.

Hann gave me one last look full of worry and then left.

As soon as the door closed behind him I got to my feet and threw on some clothes. I didn’t need a mental health day. I didn’t need Hann to babysit me. I just needed to get the _fuck_ out of this room, this hotel. I didn’t know what would fix the horrific split in my heart, in my head, but I did know that I wouldn’t find it in a hotel room full of used sheets and the pitying looks of my friends.

By the time Ross had reached my room after Adam found him, I was already gone.

******

My phone started ringing when I had been gone about ten minutes. Without thinking (and consumed by my pain) I took it out of my pocket, looked at the screen and then threw it into the bushes to my left with a force that momentarily frightened me. Some people passing by looked at me like I had lost it. Maybe I had.

I felt giddy, unhinged. Like I was falling apart and cracking up at the same time.

Matty didn’t give a fuck about me. Matty would _never_ give a fuck about me. And I had thought that this had all meant something! Hah. I was such a fucking idiot. I laughed out loud at that. Jesus fucking Christ I was _such an idiot_ and then my laughter quickly turned to tears when my heart fell apart and I remembered last night – the feel of him, the scent of his skin, his soulful eyes.

Those _fucking_ eyes.

I stopped walking and staggered onto an empty bench nearby on the street. I could barely breathe I was crying so hard.

I was dying. I was dying. I was dying.

Matty didn’t give a fuck about me and I couldn’t keep doing this. I couldn’t keep following him around, offering up my heart and letting him play with it. I didn’t have it in me anymore. I had made a promise to myself to always protect Matty and keep him safe… but who would protect me?

“G-George? Are you okay?”

I looked up as someone said my name. Two women were standing in front of me. I didn’t know them but they knew me.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

_Fans._

“Yes, um… yes, yes. I’m fine,” I lied, wiping a hand down my face and forcing myself to take a deep breath and try to wrangle some semblance of calm onto my features.

“Are you sure?” One of them asked.

I didn’t blame them for not believing me.

“Of course. Do you guys want a picture?” I asked.

They shifted uncomfortably.

“No, that’s okay. We just… we saw you throw your phone away and we just wanted to make sure you were alright?”

At that the taller of the two handed me my phone.

“Do you… Do you need us to call someone for you?” she asked.

I was fucking mortified. My face started to burn.

“Oh, oh no guys thank you. I’m sorry. I am just having the worst fucking morning. But I’m fine. I promise. Thank you,” I gave them a feeble wave as they said goodbye.

 _Fucking hell_.

I rummaged in the pockets of the jacket I had flung on and thankfully my wallet was there, along with my room key card. I needed smokes and I needed a quiet place where I wouldn’t get recognised so I could fall apart in peace.

I walked until I found a grimy, sad little bar out of the way and I proceeded to get absolutely trashed because what else could I do? Matty didn’t want me. I loved him. He didn’t love me back. He just wanted me when he was upset or struggling. I was a mistake. Our friendship was beyond fucked now. The band was probably going to be fucked as well after this and it was all my fault. If I hadn’t caught feelings for him none of this would be happening right now.

I drank and I thought of my younger self, of how allergic I had been to Matty when I first met him. How we just didn’t get on. And then that stupid day in his basement when he had thrown those fucking drumsticks at me and this entire thing had started. If I had just ignored him none of this would be happening. If I hadn’t offered Noah, Ross and Hann a spliff at school that one day… For fuck’s sake.

Memories assaulted me as the hours passed: Matty and I bunking off school to make music and get high. Matty finding me passed out in a wheelie bin at that ridiculous house party he had thrown. Matty commiserating with me when Alannah Colson had obliterated my heart when we were younger. Matty and I sharing tiny single beds together when we first started touring with the band and could only afford one room between the four of us.

Matty and I, our faces pressed up against the glass of the tiny window in the men’s bathroom at Tony’s bar, getting high before we did a show.

Matty crawling into my bed on so many nights I had lost count when we lived together.

I was crying again. I was fracturing away into nothing. I drank more but all the alcohol did was make me dizzy. It didn’t kill the pain like I so desperately wanted it to. This pain was beyond numbing and that just made it so much worse.

I tried turning on my phone after a while. The screen was shattered all along the bottom, but surprisingly it still worked and I could read the best part of texts. Messages and missed calls flooded in once it was up and running. Hann had texted me twenty-three times:

> **Hann:** Where are you?  
>  **Hann:** I know you’re hurting, but for fuck’s sake George, please don’t do anything stupid.  
>  **Hann:** George call me. CALL ME.  
>  **Hann:** Just tell me where you are.  
>  **Hann:** I’m freaking out mate. This isn’t funny.  
>  **Hann:** Please let me know you’re okay.  
>  **Hann:** Fuck Matty seriously. Fuck him. Please tell me where you are mate. I need to know you’re okay.

There was nothing from Matty. I don’t even know why I thought there would be. He was probably too busy fucking Gabby right this second. He was probably telling her how much he loved her, even though she would never be able to love him as much as I did.

My sadness turned to bitterness which led me, unsurprisingly, to anger the more I drank.

Time passed. I stewed in my anger. I moved between the bar and the smoking area, gradually watching the day fade before my eyes.

Eventually I couldn’t drink anymore. I was fucked up and too agitated to sit there. The bartender was also trying to make conversation with me because I kept bursting into tears and clearly had fucking issues, so I had to leave.

I needed to clear my head.

I left the bar and started walking again. Evening started to fall. Then night. I smoked more as the light failed. It always got darker earlier in this part of the world. I just kept walking. The only thing I could feel was the turmoil in my chest – a potent mixture of pain, sadness and red-hot anger.

I ended up walking for about two hours. It started to rain, a light mist, but I didn’t care. I was deeply upset and could keenly feel the weight of everything settling over my mind. My thoughts felt like they were caught in a vice grip. I felt like the life was being squeezed from me the more I remembered Matty’s text: _Mistake. Mistake. Mistake._ I just needed to move.

I walked and walked, the light rain gradually soaking into my skin and my hair, but I eventually found myself back at the hotel when realised I could literally walk to the ends of the fucking earth and I’d never be able to out-walk my feelings.

I practically ran through the lobby, hoping no one would notice me. I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to have to explain where I had been or why I was so fucking upset. I just wanted to be alone.

I made it up to my room unnoticed but sighed deeply when I shut the door behind me. I knew I wasn’t alone. My heart sank.

I turned around and I could see him. He was out on the balcony, in the misting rain, smoking. His back was to me, but I knew he had heard me come in. The room looked slightly different. It took me a second to realise that housekeeping had put fresh sheets on the bed while I had been out. I slowly walked towards the sliding door separating the hotel room from the balcony and stepped outside.

“Hann says this is all my fault,” he said, hearing me approach.

He turned to face me slowly and my breath caught in my throat. The soft, pinkish light of the city illuminated him from behind. His skin almost seemed to glow against the fading light. Drops of rain were caught in his curls. He was utterly, _utterly_ beautiful.

He regarded me silently as he took a long, deep drag of his cigarette. His eyes were red and puffy. He had been crying. He looked like he hadn’t slept.

“Where have you been Georgie?” He asked then.

I fumbled in my pockets for a cigarette and took my time lighting it. My hands were shaking. I wasn’t sure if it was the rain or the fact that Matty was standing here in front of me, but I was suddenly chilled to the bone.

“Where were you George?” he repeated the question, his voice had an edge to it.

“That’s funny. I could ask you the same question,” I said and he visibly flinched. “Where were you this morning Matty? Why did you leave?”

His dark eyes burned in the low light.

“I told you. It was a mistake. I’m sorry,” he said it so quietly I had to strain to hear him over the noise of the traffic on the street below us.

I watched him as he flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette. I tried so hard to look away from him but I couldn’t. He was so fucking beautiful. My heart was breaking apart inside me.

“A mistake,” I repeated the word and it stung just as much when I heard it in my own voice.

The word repeated itself over and over in my head until it started to lose all meaning: _Mistake. Mistake. Mistake._

A heavy silence fell between us. I could literally feel the weight of all the unspoken words hanging over us. Words that should have been spoken years ago. We both spent a few moments looking at everything other than each other, but eventually our eyes locked again.

Matty frowned. He looked like he was wrestling with something but whatever it was, I wasn’t privy to it. My idiotic heart ached to go to him. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted him to say that he didn’t mean what he had said in that stupid text. I wanted him to collapse into tears and to just hold me. My face crumpled.

_Breathe George._

“Fuck, don’t look at me like that Georgie,” he said then, voice strained. “I have a girlfriend.”

His voice broke slightly when he said the word ‘girlfriend.’

“So that’s it? You’re just going to pretend that nothing happened? Just like the other times?” I was shaking now.

Matty threw his eyes up to the sky. The rain fell on his face. He was so fucking beautiful. He was beautiful and I had the distinct feeling that I had been experiencing ever since my feelings for him had developed: Like I was hurtling towards a car crash, only this time I could finally see the point of impact up ahead. There were only minutes left before my head went through the metaphorical windscreen.

“George, I…” he swallowed, his voice thick. “I can’t just leave her.”

“Right, right. I forgot. Because that’s all I am. I’m the mistake that happens when you’re upset or you’re lonely or you need comfort. I’m the mistake that takes care of you, that you just expect to always be there waiting for you,” I snapped then, my anger rising.

He prickled at my words.

“Oh spare me George. You love being a martyr for your fucking co-dependence. I never asked you to take care of me. You stand there like I’ve mortally wounded you or caused you some deep harm and yet you can’t even be honest with me. You’re not okay. There’s been something up with you for months now and you think I don’t see it, but I do. You can’t even be honest with me,” his voice was rising.

“Be honest with you? How can I when all you fucking do is leave me? You NEVER give me a chance. You _never_ stay. Matty my back is _broken_ with the weight of carrying your fucking flighty attention!” My voice cracked.

“Fuck you George!” He snapped at me then.

“Fuck me? Fuck you mate. You have no fucking idea what you’ve done to me. How fucking miserable you’ve made me. How much you’ve broken me this past year. I’m _dying_ Matty. I’m dying and Hann is right – all of this is your fucking fault,” I was aware that my anger was taking over, but I couldn’t stop it.

“Grow up George! You’re an adult. We’re all dying. We’re all fucked up. I am not the sole fucking cause of your pain or your damage. It’s not fair to place this all on me,” he started.

I could sense that he was gearing up to go on a rant, but the words fell out of me before I could stop them:

“LOVING YOU IS DESTROYING ME!”

The words rang in the air. Matty fell silent. I fell silent.

The rain pattered down around us.

_Loving you._

I had said it and I couldn’t take it back.

Around us the noise of the city. The hum of the traffic on the streets below. Music playing, filtering up from a nearby bar. The rolling noise of luggage trolleys on asphalt from the hotel’s main entrance somewhere beneath us. I suddenly felt very, very lost.

Matty took another drag of his cigarette and closed his eyes for a few seconds, although it felt like hours. Then he shook his head:

“No. You don’t love me. Not really. You love the idea of fixing me. It’s your ‘knight in shining armour, I’m a good man’ complex,” he said, voice small. “You don’t love me.”

He opened his eyes, and they were shining in the dark. Tears.

“You don’t love me George,” he said it again, more insistent this time, as if he was trying to convince himself it wasn’t true.

I looked at him sadly. His reaction told me everything I needed to know. I loved Matty but Matty would never, had never, loved me. That was it. I knew I was done.

“I… I’m staying with her George. I owe it to her,” he said, dropping the end of his cigarette onto the ground.

I watched him as he put it out with his foot. He may as well have been grinding his foot onto my heart. I had said it, I had admitted my true feelings, and he had given me nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

“I think it’s time to just let this pass,” he sighed it out, like the idea of us, me and him, carried a physical weight that was an inconvenience for him to bear.

“I’m clearly not good for you. Look at you,” he said, looking me up and down.

“I have to go,” he pushed past me.

“Matty please,” I followed him back into the hotel room.

“Matty wait,” I reached out and grabbed his arm, but he pulled it away and opened the door.

“I love you,” I choked it out one last time hoping it would be enough to stop him.

He paused at the door, took one last look at me. He was crying properly now, tears rolling down his cheeks. His beautiful face contorted.

“You don’t love me George,” he said again and then he left.

The door closed with a sharp click behind him. I stood there, staring at the space where he had been seconds before and my stomach lurched.

I ran to the bathroom, my knees bruising on their impact with the tiles as I fell in front of the toilet and puked. I was so full of pain it was making me sick.

Matty didn’t love me. I had told him how I felt and he had left. This was the point of impact that had been looming on the horizon for an entire fucking year. I was through the windscreen now. It was a fatal crash. There were no fucking survivors.

I wanted to rip my heart out of my chest because the pain was so unbearable. I grabbed my phone once I stopped puking and called Matty. No answer. I called again. I left eight voicemails, each one more frantic and crazy than the last: _Please talk to me. Matty, please. Please let me explain. I’m sorry. Please just talk to me. Please._

And then I drank everything in the mini bar in desperation. I just wanted to be numb. I just wanted to forget. I got sloppy drunk. I howled my pain loudly at the walls. I cried until I felt like I was going to be sick again.

At some point there was a knock on my door and I rushed to it, thinking it was Matty, that he had come back, but it was just Hann and Ross. And Hann had taken one look at me and had said sadly: “Fuck, Georgie,” and had made me drink some water while he not-so-subtly pocketed my phone.

And Ross had thrown me into the shower, fully clothed to try and sober me up because by this point I wasn’t making any sense. I was so utterly consumed by my pain I was babbling like a mad man.

And later, when they thought that I had finally passed out, Ross had asked Adam what the fuck was going on and Adam had just sighed and said: “He’s going through something right now mate and it’s only going to get worse.”

It’s only going to get worse.

******

I woke up early the next morning. Ross and Hann were fast asleep. Hann on the bed beside me, Ross on a chair in the small living area of the room. Somewhere, in my restless half-sleep last night, I had made a decision. I knew what I had to do.

Holding my breath, I managed to retrieve my phone from Adam’s pocket without waking him and then I quickly and quietly gathered all my shit together (which wasn’t too hard because I never really unpacked anyway when we got to hotels. We were never there long enough, so it was always pointless).

Once I had my stuff, I wrote a note on some hotel stationary I found in the drawer of a desk:

> _I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. I just have to get out of here. Thank you both for being such good mates. Please don’t let him contact me. I can’t speak to him right now._

And then I realised it was reading a little ominous and I didn’t want them to worry or think I was going to do something stupid, so I added an explainer:

> _I_ _’m not going to do anything stupid (unless you count this as being stupid), but I just need to go home. I hope you understand. I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk. I really am sorry – G x._

The sun was rising as I made my way to the airport alone. The taxi driver kept trying to start a conversation with me, probably because I looked like I needed help. He kept sneaking worried glances at my reflection in his rear-view mirror.

I looked as shit as I felt. My eyes were swollen and puffy from crying. I probably stank of booze. I was the living embodiment of someone barely holding it together.

I had a three-hour wait at the airport before I could get a flight back to the UK. While I was nursing a coffee and trying not to cry again, a text came through from Adam:

> **Hann:** We love you mate. We love you so much and I’m sorry. Whatever happened, I’m so fucking sorry. All we want is for you to be happy. You know that Ross and I are always here for you if you need anything. Well… Ross still doesn’t really know what the fuck is going on, but his heart is in the right place. Take all the time you need and please take care of yourself x.

And Adam’s kindness made me break down properly then. I started to cry in the almost-empty airport café and I couldn’t stop.

I couldn’t stop.

******


	19. Intermission 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I have a double-update for you today my loves! Can't believe we're almost at the end. Thank you, as always, for showing up, reading and leaving comments, kudos and views. You are all so wonderful <3

**Intermission 4**

_I think there’s something you should know  
I don’t feel like myself I’m not gonna lie._

The first few weeks you think about him with every breath you take. He’s on your mind constantly. You become obsessed with him. You check his social media accounts multiple times a day. You set up an alert for him on Google news. Even though he had utterly destroyed you, it’s like you still need your fix. You roam the house you once shared together, and you sit in his old bedroom and you cry and you cry and you cry.

You don’t shower. You barely eat. You’ve stopped working. And life feels like one endless day.

You google: _“My heart is broken and I feel like I’m fucking dying”_ one night after a few glasses of wine, and it takes you to a page about grief and you realise that Matty is, in a sense, dead to you now. The concept of him as someone you love was (and still is) such a full-bodied experience, and now you’re just standing there, in the aftermath of that horrific car crash, in the wreckage, watching the paramedics zip it up in a body bag after your fatal head-on collision. It’s dead. You are in grief.

But is it possible to grieve something you never had? Your therapist, Dr Will, tells you “Yes, absolutely” what feels like an age later, when you get tired of existing and decide that you’d like to try and maybe live again.

But before you reach that point, many months pass in this ghost-like state of roaming around feeling as though you’re transparent, like you’re not made of substance, like you’re bleeding pain onto everyone you meet.

_How would you know? It doesn’t show –  
I think there’s something you should know._

In the initial days, your sister comes to stay unannounced because she’s worried about you. Word of your sorry state has spread to your family (most likely via Adam or Jamie). Your mum initially wanted to come, your sister tells you, but your sister thought it was better if she came instead and you’re grateful for that, because you’re not even sure what you would say to your mum if she arrived on your doorstep. None of your family know about your feelings for Matty. All they know is the official line, that you’re “suffering from exhaustion” (whatever the fuck that means) and you don’t correct them.

Your sister brings Hank the golden retriever with her as a way of cheering you up and Hank becomes a bit like an emotional support dog to you. You tell Hank _everything_ and he looks at you with his big, sad eyes and a small part of you feels as though he gets it, even though you know he probably doesn’t. But the illusion of understanding is a small comfort in those early days. Hank gets you out of the house and your older sister cleans things and makes you eat. She subtly checks in with Hann and restores that channel of communication quietly.

The day she leaves, a few weeks later, Hann shows up to take her place and Hann is back taking care of you again, just like before.

Hann doesn’t talk about Matty, but you already know Matty is no longer in a good place either. You saw his mum, lovely Denise, on a morning chat show recently speaking about her son’s relapse and how he’s doing better now and it’s all part of the process. This sends you into a spiral that lasts three whole weeks because Matty has relapsed and you promised you wouldn’t let that happen again. And you broke that promise. You let him down.

_I think there’s something you should know.  
I’m feeling like someone, like somebody else,  
I don’t feel myself, it could be my health._

After three months, Denise calls you out of the blue. It’s a grey day and you’re full of pain. Her voice is so kind it makes you come apart at the seams. You start to cry on phone to her and she says _It’s okay Georgie_ , and you never noticed it before but she says your name in the same way that Matty does and that makes you cry even harder. She says that she’s not going to ask you the full details of what happened because it’s not her business and that’s between you and her son. But she does ask if you can be patient with him. If you can just give him time. He hasn’t been himself. She’s worried about him and she was shocked when she heard that you were no longer speaking. _And can you, Georgie, please just be patient with him while he works through some issues? We all love you Georgie. We know it’s hard on everyone. Please take care of yourself._

Shortly after that unexpected call, Hann starts to bring up the subject of therapy as a way for you to get some support.

“You deserve to be happy mate. This is not living,” he says and his words trigger a memory in your head of a night in the studio when you still had hope.

_It’s not living if it’s not with you._

And while Matty wrote those words referring to his drug addiction, you find them oddly fucking relatable for your current situation.

You ask Hann to help you find someone you can talk to. It takes a few tries with different shrinks before, months later, you come across Dr Will and you tell him everything and you cry and you say you don’t believe in therapy and he says: “Fuck therapy then, how about human conversation?” And that appeals to you.

_I’d like to meet myself and swap clothes,  
I think there’s something you should know._

Time passes. It rolls on slowly and you feel every single second as it ticks by.

After a solid few months (and a decent amount of therapy), you finally feel the urge to start creating again. You make some beats and you let Hann listen to them. You start messing with some previously recorded stuff. You start experimenting.

Hann says it sounds good and he asks about the possibility of a new album and you say yes immediately, but quickly take it back when you realise a new album would mean seeing Matty and being in the studio with him and you’re just not ready. You haven’t spoken since that night in the hotel when he fucking destroyed you. Hann understands.

But you’re making positive changes. You’ve started to run and meditate. You’ve started eating proper meals. You put the house that you shared with Matty up for sale and even though it kills you, you know you need the fresh start. God, you need the fresh start.

_You get a moment when you feel alright,  
you get a moment when you feel alright…_

The night you move out, you cry and cry and cry. Hann has to physically remove you from Matty’s old room. Hann has to take Matty’s remaining crap (that has never left that room) and get it away from you. He doesn’t know that you’ve stolen one of Matty’s old t-shirts that he left behind and that you’ve been sleeping with it on the pillow next to you, even though it doesn’t smell like him anymore. It still fucking cripples you though and you feel so stupid that a t-shirt can reduce you to this, but that’s sort of what heartbreak is like, isn’t it?

It’s the small triggers that fucking cripple you – the scent of their brand of cigarettes. Their favourite song. The café you both used to sit outside of for hours, nursing hangovers and coffees. Almost relationships, because that’s sort of what you had with Matty, are made up of all these moments that feel so inconsequential at the time. The joke is that you don’t find out how much they really mean until later. Until it’s already dead and buried. It haunts you through small moments.

_You get a moment when you feel alright,  
you get a moment when you feel alright._

You’re doing yoga all the time now and have started going to a class in a fancy studio near your new home. You’re the only man there on a Tuesday morning and you’re surrounded by slightly older women, but you don’t care. They accept you as one of their own easily and they enjoy the novelty of you being the only man. You become friends with a group of new mums and one of them introduces you to a friend of a friend: Lauren.

You start seeing each other and you try and try to pour yourself into her, in the same way that you did with Matty, but it doesn’t work. And after a good few months, with your sadness reigniting in your chest, she senses what’s going on. She senses that she’s not at the forefront of your thoughts when you’re in bed together. And she asks if there’s another woman and even though you tell the truth and tell her no, she still angrily throws her stuff into a bag like Hannah did years ago and leaves anyway.

And you don’t care. You don’t fucking care.

You wish you did, but you don’t.

_I feel so seen and I can’t dream,  
sleeping terrifies me, otherwise I’m fine._

You agree to start the album after a sit down with Ross, Hann and Jamie. But you tell them that you absolutely cannot do it with Matty. You just can’t. Time has healed you, but it hasn’t healed you enough to actually see him. They understand and they agree.

Unbeknownst to you, Matty has already had a similar conversation with them. Boundaries are defined over the next few weeks around who gets to be in the studio and when. You’re nervous the first time you go there, just in case you accidentally bump into him, but you never do. The boundaries are airtight.

You start going out a bit more. Friday night dinner and drinks becomes a tradition with you and Hann, and Waughy and Ross love a brunch that turns into day-drinking on lazy Sunday afternoons. By this stage, everyone knows what happened with you and Matty and it’s a bit embarrassing.

Hann didn’t tell them. Hann would never betray your trust like that. But Matty apparently let some crucial information slip after a few drinks one night when he was out with Ross, and Ross put two and two together. So everyone knows you fucked, and by the fall-out between you and Matty post-fucking, everyone knows that you (at least) were hopelessly in love.

But your friends are good people and even though they now know, they don’t ask you about it. They don’t bring it up. They just accept it.

Hann says that Ross thought you and Matty had been secretly fucking for years anyway because you were always so close. And that makes you laugh first and then cry later because again, you wonder if you were in love with Matty for even longer than you realised.

_See-saw back and forth, back on the door,  
back on the floor oh please ignore me,  
I’m just feeling sorry for myself._

You enjoy working on music again and you spend months blissfully working on beats and drumming sequences. It feels really fucking good. You do your thing, sometimes in an actual studio and sometimes at home, and you allow your drumming to be a cathartic act. You visualise your pain leaving your body every time your sticks make contact with the drums.

The first day a fully-formed vocal track arrives ready for you to work your magic on it, however, you falter. Hann comes and holds your hand and when you hear Matty’s perfect fucking voice you cry and cry and cry. It’s the same every time you hear his perfect fucking voice. And you can’t listen to the lyrics, not really, because you don’t have it in you to hear him sing about his life and anything that might have been part of his experience during this time that you haven’t been speaking.

You remember his notebook: _So what about these feelings I’ve got?_

Yeah, what about them?

_Feeling like someone, like somebody else  
who don’t feel themselves paying for  
their wealth with their mental health._

Therapy helps though. Dr Will helps you see where you’ve been going wrong. How you sacrificed yourself so much for Matty and denied your own needs, which contributed to the problem. You learn so much in therapy and a part of you gets pissed off that no one taught you these essential things when you were younger.

You feel like a shit adult when Dr Will explains the concepts of self-care and self-compassion to you and you can’t believe you’re almost fucking thirty now and no one has told you about them before.

_I’d like to meet myself and swap clothes,  
I think there’s someplace I should go._

The months move on. You turn thirty. You celebrate by watching the sun rise over London alone, and you allow yourself to feel quietly optimistic and like you’re moving into the next phase of your life now.

You stopped checking his social media a few months ago. You got rid of the Google news alert. You enjoy things now. You have a good family, good friends. Happiness, though still elusive, arrives every now and then when you least expect it. And you think you’ve found some level of inner peace. You hope you have. The more you think about it, you’re not really sure.

It's then one evening that your phone vibrates and you get a chill down your spine before you even look at the screen. It’s like you just _know_.

You pick it up and you recognise the number on the screen immediately. It comes up as a number now and not a name, because you deleted the name from your phone contacts months ago.

Your stomach lurches but you click into it and read it anyway:

> **+440084…:** Please don’t delete this G. I know you want to, but please don’t. Look… I know it’s been a while but I was hoping we could talk, as in talk properly. Just… would you meet me for a coffee? I know you don’t owe me anything, but I would be so grateful for even five minutes of your time.

He signs off as simply ‘M’ and you spend a stupid amount of time looking at that single letter. M. Eventually you have to tear your eyes away from it.

You force yourself to take a breath. Your hands are shaking.

You put your phone down. You ignore the message.

Two weeks later, Hann arrives on your doorstep one Thursday evening with a bottle of whiskey and the words: “I need to talk to you.”

And you know it’s something serious and that something is up because Adam Hann is _never_ this direct. He’s usually subtle and sensitive to everyone around him. He gets his point across in a gentle and easy way that makes everyone listen to him immediately.

So when he asks you to sit, you sit and as he pours you a shot and says: “It’s about Matty, drink.” You just drink.

And Hann says he knows that Matty texted you. And he also knows that you ignored said text, but Hann says that things have changed. Considerably. That Matty and he have been working quite closely together lately and the other night, they had gone out for a few drinks and Matty had told him about the text. And Hann would never tell you what to do with your life and he would never tell you that your pain wasn’t justified (it was) but things have changed. Matty has changed. And _aren’t you tired George? Aren’t you tired of carrying around all this pain? Don’t you think you should just clear the air properly?_

“You know he wants to meet,” Hann says. “He wants to talk. And he didn’t put me up to this, he doesn’t know I’m speaking to you about it. But if there’s any part of you that wants to see him, I can set something up for the two of you if you’d prefer not to engage with him directly.”

He pours you another shot and you drink it as you let this information settle in your mind.

“George, as your mate, I think you owe it to yourself to get whatever you’ve been carrying around off your chest. You deserve to have him listen to you. And we’re all getting old mate. I just worry that you’ll regret it if you don’t say all the things you need to say to him,” says Hann.

Another shot. Another drink.

“He’s changed a lot. He’s not the same person that he was back then… It’s hard to explain, but you’ll get what I mean if you meet him,” says Hann.

And you sit and you think. And then you get a bit angry because there’s still a part of you that’s wounded now, all this time later, and why shouldn’t you give Matty a piece of your mind?

_I think there’s something you should know._

And there’s a smaller part that aches a little and says it would be nice to see him. Because no matter how much you kid yourself into thinking you’re over it and you’ve moved on, there’s always that part of you that’s attached to him. That cares about how he is. That wants to know. You haven’t really been able to stop thinking about that text message.

_I think there’s something you should know._

And Hann is looking at you, waiting for a reaction and you take a deep breath and say:

“Okay. I’ll meet him.”

******


	20. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: From here on out we're in the present tense. This chapter picks up directly from Chapter 11 if you'd like to re-read. George has just texted Hann to tell him he's still in love with Matty. Only two chapters left! I'll be back next week with another update. Enjoy loves <3

**Chapter 15**

“Do you want to get that?” Matty asked as I set a glass of red wine down in front of him.

My phone had been vibrating like crazy ever since we got into the pub. I had left it sitting face down on the table while I went to grab us some drinks.

I picked up the phone and glanced at the screen as I sat down opposite him. Nine missed calls from Hann. Twelve text messages. All communications sent in the last fifteen minutes, since I had causally mentioned that I was still in love with Matty. I frowned.

“Is everything okay?” Matty nodded at the phone in my hand.

I switched it off.

“Yeah, it’s fine. It’s just one of my sisters being annoying,” I lied, putting it in my pocket.

I knew what Hann was going to say. He would tell me to cease and desist, to stop and think before I rushed into anything. He would tell me I was being crazy, that I was forgetting how broken up I had been, how badly Matty had hurt me.

Hann would say that all the money I had spent on therapy had been a fucking joke if I just lapsed back into my addiction to Matty so easily. He would say that I needed to take care of myself and put myself first. He would say that I _had_ to talk to Matty, to tell him how much he had hurt me before. And he would be right, completely and totally.

I hated that Hann was always right.

My brain felt a bit mad as I turned my attention back to Matty. I was spiralling between sheer fucking joy at being in his presence and deep, deep pain. There was a potent cocktail of desperation, longing, depression, anxiety and terror being stirred up inside my mind. I felt so muddled up.

The sensible part of me was screaming _“George, what the FUCK is this?”_ at me, but my heart just kept leaning towards Matty. I felt like I was a plant and he was the only source of light in the pub, the city, the entire universe. My stupid fucking heart just insisted on going towards him.

_Breathe George. Fuck. Would you just breathe?_

We were sitting outside in a partially covered smoking area. It was a bit chilly, but the space was decorated with strung-up fairy lights that gave the illusion of warmth and cosiness. We had both immediately gravitated towards this part of the pub, both of us knowing that nicotine would be needed for the next part of this conversation, along with alcohol to soften the inevitable emotional blows that would come.

I watched Matty as he raised his glass of wine to his lips and took a drink. His eyes were darting around the smoking area, as if he was looking for an emergency exit in case things went tits up between us and he had to leave in a hurry. I suppressed a frown.

“I haven’t been here in ages,” he said then, and I realised he was just taking in his surroundings.

I was being paranoid.

“No, me either. Funny how we both just immediately assumed we were coming here,” I said and it was true.

We hadn’t actually decided aloud on a specific place when we had left the café. We had both just started walking in the same direction and had ended up here.

“Well, great minds and all that,” Matty said.

He reached across the table and gabbed a stray beer mat, immediately starting to play that bar game where you balance a mat on the edge of a table and try to flip it and catch it with one hand. He was physically incapable of sitting still, even when you were trying to have a serious conversation with him. I honestly wondered how Denise had been able to keep her patience with him over the years.

His first attempt failed. As did his second and third.

By his fourth attempt, I couldn’t help but laugh at him.

“Fuck, you do better then,” he said throwing the beer mat at me and scowling when I caught it easily with one hand.

“Excellent reflexes mate, had you forgotten?” I said and he rolled his eyes at me.

He watched me as I flipped the mat and caught it in one go effortlessly.

“Show off,” he said and we both lapsed into silence again, focusing on our drinks.

I knew he was stalling. Hell, I was stalling too. How do you even begin a conversation like this?

I sighed, turning in my seat, and looked around the smoking area. Despite the fact that it was post-work hours, there wasn’t too many people around. No one was paying us any attention.

I turned back around and Matty was staring intently at my hands. I suddenly realised I was thrumming out drumming warm-ups with my fingertips. I forced myself to stop. I was anxious.

“The album turned out good, right?” Matty said then, “All things considered.”

“All things considered,” I echoed, leaving out the part that I still couldn’t fucking listen to it in its entirely for fear of losing my mind.

Flashback of me crying on Hann’s shoulder the first time I heard Matty’s voice through the speakers in the studio. The fluid smoothness of his tone. I vaguely remembered telling Hann that I wanted to wrap Matty’s voice around me like a perpetual good feeling and Hann had just given me a sad look and hugged me tighter, mumbling the words: “I am so fucking worried about you,” into my hair because with a comment like that (I mean who fucking _says_ shit like that?) I was clearly going insane.

“I loved the softness that you brought into ‘The Birthday Party’,” he said, referencing the snippets of conversation I had added at the start.

“Well, I wanted it to feel like you’re actually at a birthday party every time people listen to it,” I said and he smiled.

“That’s _exactly_ what I wanted it to sound like. The vibe I was trying to convey,” he bobbed his head enthusiastically.

Matty loved talking about music. He could talk about music for hours.

“Great minds and all that,” I said, mirroring his own words. Reflecting them back to him.

I found it funny that despite the fact we had worked on the album separately, we still went in the same direction when it came to things like this – our instincts were still exactly the same.

I remembered that awful day when we had been on live TV and Matty had called our relationship “intuitive” and I had stewed in my own anger. I remembered the way he had pushed past me in the green room that day and told me to “go fuck” myself too. Sting of pain.

_Don’t think about it George._

I craned my neck slightly so I could see the sky that was hanging low over the smoking area. The rain had stopped. The haze of the city lights mixed with the heavy clouds. My heart felt like a dead weight. I had the distinct impression that I would remember this particular sky forever, this moment, here with Matty, forever. The memory of this sky would make me sick in the future if things between us deteriorated further tonight.

I knew I would never be able to come back to this bar again either.

“‘Having no Head’ is spectacular by the way,” he said then, rousing me from my depressing thoughts. “I felt like I was having a spiritual experience the first time I listened to it… I immediately stopped what I was doing, had a spliff and then listened to it again. It gave me the same effect but in an even more profound way. It’s incredible George, truly.”

I could feel myself blushing slightly at the praise. ‘Having no Head’ was my baby. It was the first time I had felt comfortable throwing everything I had into one of my own songs. A lot of myself went into that song. A lot of pain. A lot of tears. A lot of heart. It was like an exorcism over slapping beats.

“I took inspiration from a book on meditation,” I said, referring to the title and Matty laughed, clapping his hands together.

“That’s why it sounds so trippy! I thought you were just incredibly stoned. Fuck, are you sure you’re not a Buddhist?” He laughed again and took another drink from his wine.

His enthusiasm was contagious and while I knew we were here to talk about what had happened between us, about the unpleasantness, it was hard not to get sucked in to only talking about the happier things that we both enjoyed. The things that made us feel like our old selves.

“I very much enjoyed the juxtaposition between the soft piano at the start, then the huge swell of euphoric music, the beats, fuck, they’re amazing. And then the soft piano again at the end, only more fragile,” he said, getting thoughtful now.

“It’s like you’re you but then you go through this huge experience where you’re put in touch with something that’s almost… divine. But then it passes and at the end you’re still the same, just more fragile because you’ve had a taste of something otherworldly,” he mused and I felt a stab of pain in my heart.

I didn’t say anything.

I watched as realisation started to silently creep across his face. He looked at me with those deep eyes of his, a flicker of pain or sadness moving through them so quickly I couldn’t distinguish which. He didn’t say what we were both thinking.

‘Having no Head’ was my subjective experience of loving Matty. It was obvious. Blatantly obvious. That’s why it was so fucking evocative. It was filled with my pain and my heart. My fucking _soul_ was in that song.

We were quiet again. I took another drink. I shifted in my seat. I couldn’t get comfortable. Matty sighed. The atmosphere around us changed, suddenly becoming quieter and more intimate.

“I relapsed,” he said then, leaning forward and folding his arms on top of the table. His body language drawing me in.

I leaned forward in my seat slightly.

“After you left I… I didn’t know what to do. So I just got high. And I always thought a relapse was a one-time thing, that you do it once and you get it out of your system. But it lasted for a good few weeks. I went back to my shitty behaviour. I told lies. I made excuses. I hurt people,” he swallowed, eyes glassy, like he was watching some memory playing out in front of him that I couldn’t see.

“After you left, I had this distinct impression that something important had been taken away from me and I would never get it back. I just wanted to numb the fuck out because my feelings around everything were too…” He unfolded his arms and waved one of his hands in the air, searching for the right word.

“My feelings were too messy,” he said.

I could relate to that.

“But I managed to get back on the wagon eventually. And then, as irony would have it, I promptly fell back off it onto my ass a few weeks later. I was spiralling George. We weren’t doing any band stuff and I didn’t realise how badly I needed the routine, the structure of work I guess. I fell back into… bad habits. It started taking over my life again. It was all I could think about. And then things weren’t good between Adam and I for a little while,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows at that, genuinely surprised. Adam hadn’t mentioned anything about them having a falling out.

“Where I lived wasn’t helping things and then there was that awful showdown, _Jesus Christ_ …” he ran a hand down his face.

I wanted to ask, “What showdown? What happened?” but I knew from the way he trailed off that he wasn’t going to elaborate.

The door to the smoking area opened and a few people filtered in. I watched as they hugged some of their friends who were already here. I needed a smoke.

Matty watched me as I took out a cigarette and lit up. I offered it to him and he took it, sighing out the words, “Thanks mate.”

I lit another one for myself because given the look on his face (tired, suddenly worn) I suspected he didn’t want to share.

He looked sad and I could practically _see_ his brain trying to process the events of the past few months, the past few years. A serious expression rested on his face.

I was about to dive in and save him again, to start talking about something inane and fun, just to offer him some kind of relief, but before I could, he started speaking again:

“Adam told me I had to get my head out of my arse. We had a bit of a bust up. Then he arrived at my house one evening and was pissed off. Like really fucking pissed off,” he laughed slightly at that.

“Hann, who never gets fucking mad about anything. Can you believe it? He tore into me mate,” he tapped some ash off the end of his cigarette and I sat there a bit stunned at this new information.

“We got into a proper fight and I tried to hit him and all, right there on my doorstep. It was intense. I was high as a kite as well, so I completely missed him and ended up falling on my backside. I was a fucking mess. But then we had a heart-to-heart and we both ended up crying. My neighbours thought we were insane.”

I pictured the two of them clinging to each other and sobbing on Matty’s doorstep.

“He took care of me,” I volunteered then, “When I wasn’t in a good place. Well… fuck, he took care of me for the better part of three years. He _still_ takes care of me.”

Matty raised his glass and said: “A toast to Adam Hann, saint amongst men.”

I lifted my glass and clinked it with his. We finished our drinks and Matty went to get another round in.

What would we do without Adam Hann? Who fucking knew? All I knew was that I never wanted to find out the answer to that question.

“It’s packed out there,” Matty said, arriving back ten minutes later, drinks in hand.

“Do you remember when we had to socially distance? That was fucking crazy,” he said.

“People are making up for lost time,” I shrugged.

He put a glass of whiskey and a shot of tequila down in front of me.

“For old time’s sake,” he said, noticing my scrunched-up nose.

He picked up his own shot and I followed suit, because maybe a little Dutch courage is what we both needed. We clinked glasses again and downed the alcohol, both of us frowning at the after taste.

We were still dancing around each other and the actual conversation we needed to have still wasn’t happening. Since we had arrived here, I had been letting him lead things. The walk over here had softened me, left me feeling nostalgic and sad, but I had so many things I wanted to say to him and I knew I had to say them tonight. Whatever happened, we had to clear the air between us.

It was all well and good that we hadn’t had to see each other in recent months, but we couldn’t keep going on like this. Eventually life would have to go back to normal. We would have to make a decision. And that decision would be whether we actually broke up the band or whether Matty and I could figure out a way to just coexist peacefully without me feeling as though I was dying every time I looked at his perfect fucking beautiful face.

I let out a long, frustrated sigh and ran a hand through my hair. I needed to be brave. I needed to just be honest.

“You destroyed me Matty, you know that right?” I said then, feeling sick at my own words. At how brutal they were. The truth of them. I couldn’t look at him as I said it.

“And I know that I shouldn’t have caught feelings for you, _fuck_ , I know that was a bad call believe me… but you never stopped me either,” I said.

My heart was slamming in my chest, but I had to keep going: “You should have stopped me instead of letting things get so far. Especially if you didn’t feel the same way, fuck.”

My eyes were stinging and my throat felt constricted. The familiar ache of my pain surged up inside me and spilled over me. I was about to start crying.

He didn’t respond and his silence made me look at him then. His expression seemed to mirror how I was feeling. He looked sad. Very, very sad. And if there is a weight to the pain that we inflict on each other, I knew he was feeling it in that moment and that it was heavy. His face said it all.

He opened his mouth to speak: “Georgie, I – ”

And just at that pivotal moment when I thought we might actually get somewhere, we were interrupted by a group of people.

“George! Matty! Oh my god – can we get a selfie?” someone asked.

I screamed on the inside but put on my generic ‘dealing with the public’ face because I knew there was no escape. I glanced across at Matty as the group infiltrated our personal space, destroying the intimate atmosphere that had been wrapped around us. Matty had his ‘celebrity’ face on too.

I realised that the smoking area was packed now. I had been so focused on Matty that I hadn’t realised. I hadn’t noticed the people filtering in over the last while. I glanced at my watch quickly – we had been sitting there together for just over an hour. It hadn’t felt like it at all. Time flies when you’re having fun or trying to clear the air with someone who has caused you immeasurable amounts of pain it would seem.

I stood up and got my photo taken with some women. They chatted excitedly about _NOACF_. I glanced across at Matty again, who now had his arm slung around a guy and was enthusiastically talking to him about something. He was being warm and charming and lovely as he always was.

“How are you doing now George?” one of the women asked me and I frowned.

“Like… in life?” I asked, confused by her question and she smiled shyly at me.

“After those photos of you last year…” she trailed off and I willed my fake smile not to falter.

Oh yes, _those_ fucking photos.

An enterprising paparazzo had caught me sitting on a bench in a park post-yoga class one day, crying into a takeaway coffee. I was crying because said ridiculously overpriced coffee reminded me of Matty, and I was still having rough days where I missed him and the pain became acute. I had become the UK version of the ‘sad Keanu’ meme for about two weeks. It wasn’t a good vibe for me, I’m not going to lie.

“I’m doing much better, thank you,” I said and gave her a hug.

“We were worried about you, you know?” she said and my heart softened at that.

“I know. You guys have always been looking out for us,” I responded, making her smile.

The group eventually dispersed but as Matty and I sat back down to continue our conversation, I noticed more and more people glancing our way. He did too. The bar suddenly felt uncomfortable.

“We can’t talk here,” I said, feeling exposed.

“No,” he agreed.

He sat back in his chair and put his hands on his head, surveying the smoking area. I watched as he smiled and waved at a different group of people who were looking at us and whispering amongst themselves. They all grinned and waved back. Someone shouted: “Love you Matty!”

He laughed and stuck his tongue out at them. Then he turned his attention back to me, his face becoming serious again.

“Look, my place is closest…” he trailed off and fixed his eyes on mine. Silent words moved between us:

_Do you want to leave and talk properly?_

_Yes._

We finished our drinks and the crowd cheered at us as we left.

I had no idea why they were cheering.

******


	21. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I literally can't believe there's just ONE. MORE. CHAPTER. LEFT. after this one. Oh my goddd. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself when I don't have any more George angst :) Anyway, here's the latest update and our boys finally have it out with each other. Enjoy my loves. I'll be back with the ending at the weekend <3.

**Chapter 16**

Matty’s house was _not_ what I was expecting. At all. I couldn’t hide my surprise as he guided me through the nondescript gate, up the small, perfectly manicured garden and into the impressive concrete structure, because ‘structure’ is literally the only word I had to describe what I was looking at.

As he shut the front door behind us, the noise of the city fell away. It was like stepping inside a cave. I looked around. The hallway had a huge, high ceiling, but it was completely empty and devoid of any kind of personality, bar a ridiculous blue velvet curtain that hung down from the ceiling and hid an equally sparse staircase which ran both up and down. The word ‘industrial’ came to mind. That and ‘multistorey car park.’

“The kitchen and living area are downstairs,” Matty said as he moved in front of me and pulled back the curtain.

I shifted awkwardly where I stood.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, frowning slightly.

“I feel like I should take off my shoes or something. This is a… proper house mate. Like a grown-up house,” I said, immediately feeling like an idiot.

Matty laughed at that.

“Oh shut up and just come downstairs,” he said, turning back towards the stairs. “You sound like Denise. Please don’t start crying.”

I followed him down the stairs to the lower ‘living’ levels of the house. It still didn’t really look like someone lived here, although the sense of a carefully curated interior design was a little more obvious.

“It’s beautiful, very slick,” I said as Matty led me into what he called the “posh” living room.

“Yeah, I need it like this to calm me down. It diffuses the chaotic thoughts,” he said, gesturing to his head.

It was super minimalist. The only items to suggest that Matty actually lived here were a bookshelf filled with battered looking novels and a phone charger discarded on the floor near a socket. I wanted to ask him, ‘Where the fuck is all your stuff?’ but I didn’t.

“I never knew I needed something so stripped back to be honest, but I just wanted the complete opposite of my last place,” he was saying now as we surveyed the room together.

I thought of the cluttered Victorian terraced house he had previously inhabited, with its weird ‘horror film’ vibe. This place was the other end of the spectrum entirely. It was beautiful. Mature. Serious. Artsy. There were plants dotted throughout and all of them were thriving. A little courtyard was visible through what was essentially a glass wall running along one side of the living area. I noticed what looked like an outdoor shower nestled in among some more plants outside and a large rock that was obviously some kind of artistic focal point.

I was just about to ask him about the outdoor shower and why on earth you’d need one in the middle of London with the state of the English climate when I heard the unmistakable noise of paws skittering across floorboards.

“Mayhem, no!” Matty tried to grab the mass of black fur that was heading directly for me, but he missed.

A dog slammed into my legs, almost knocking me off balance.

“Sorry mate, he’s still a pup. He gets so fucking excited when he meets someone new,” Matty said, grabbing the dog by his collar and gently pulling him away from me as I steadied myself.

“Mayhem, love, we’ve spoken about this. You’re embarrassing me, Jesus Christ,” he muttered, holding the dog.

But Mayhem kept straining against him, desperately trying to get back to me.

“It’s okay, let him go. He just wants a sniff,” I said.

I got down onto my knees and Matty released the dog who promptly jumped all over me. After fifteen minutes of me petting him and rubbing his belly and talking to him like he was a baby, he settled and went back to his owner. Matty scratched behind his ears and Mayhem looked at him adoringly and craned his head back so he could lick his hand.

“Oh alright then, you can get on the fancy sofa. But just because George is here,” he said to the dog and I couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at my face.

Mayhem immediately jumped up onto the sleek, white sofa that dominated the space, wagging his tail happily.

“You want a drink?” Matty asked and I nodded.

He smiled slightly at me when he noticed that I was smiling at him and my head swam.

Yes, Christ, I needed a drink. The fact that I was now in his house was making me a bit uneasy about what was going to happen next. I was trying to remember everything I needed to say to him, everything I had to get off my chest, but it was hard to keep my thoughts straight. I felt overwhelmed. There was so fucking much that I needed to put into words, I couldn’t grasp the many, many sentences that kept slamming themselves to the forefront of my brain. Maybe the shot of tequila earlier had been a bad idea.

Leaving Mayhem curled up on the sofa, I followed Matty down a sparse white hallway and into a large open-plan kitchen/dining/more relaxed living area. The kitchen looked surprisingly lived in, which made me raise my eyebrows. Aside from pancakes and weird cake-based concoctions usually fuelled by a lot of spliff, Matty wasn’t a cook really. Well, he hadn’t been. I guess things had changed now. A lot had obviously changed.

A memory swam into my mind of the two of us and our nightly routine when we lived together. I would feed us because I didn’t mind cooking, and he would always sit at the table and chat to me so I didn’t get bored. I noticed a small stack of cookbooks on one of the black granite-topped kitchen counters.

He went into the kitchen, leaving me standing in the living area and started rooting through the cupboards.

“Is wine okay? I just realised I literally have nothing else bar some very questionable Sambuca that’s been here for fucking years,” he said, bending down to grab a bottle.

“Wine is good,” I nodded and took in the space.

There was art everywhere. Interesting, busy, modern-looking paintings that all appeared to be by the same artist. The largest piece in the room caught my eye and I walked towards it. As I got closer I realised it was made up of lots of words and then I realised they were lyrics. _Our_ lyrics. Lyrics Matty had written.

“I got really into painting,” he said coming over beside me and offering me a glass of red wine.

“I’m not very good, but I find it cathartic,” he motioned towards the painting I was looking at.

So he was the artist. I knew absolutely nothing about art, but I was impressed nonetheless. I took a drink of the wine. It was good wine, but that didn’t surprise me. Matty loved expensive wine.

“This is cool,” I said, my eyes moving over the lyrics on the piece in front of me.

One stuck out in particular: _So what about these feelings I’ve got?_

That line was fucking haunting me. I looked away and then I worked up the courage to ask a question that had also been haunting me:

“So… you live here alone?” I asked, trying my hardest to sound casual about it even though my anxiety levels were spiking horribly as the words left my mouth.

I had subtly been scoping out every available surface in Matty’s house since I had walked through the front door, looking for any signs that a woman lived here with him.

He nodded and then took a deep drink from his own glass. Awkward silence. I drank too, because I didn’t know what else to do. Then Matty took a breath and spoke:

“After I relapsed for, oh, the fourth time, Gabby had enough. Things got heated one night. A plate was thrown. It got… very ugly. The neighbours called the boys in blue because we were so pissed off at each other we smashed the place up between us. It was all kinds of toxic,” he didn’t meet my eyes as it said it.

“She keyed my car too because…” he paused then and shook his head, suddenly looking exhausted.

I realised this must have been the ‘showdown’ he had mentioned earlier.

“Because?” I coaxed him gently. I was desperate to know what had happened.

“Because… I was in love with someone else,” he sighed.

“And she knew too. How is it that women always _know_ these things?” He took another mouthful of wine.

I thought of Lauren and how she had also just known that some vital part of me didn’t belong to her. How it would never belong to her and it didn’t matter how much we spoke or kissed or fucked. It just wasn’t hers to have.

Silence settled over us as we just stood there in Matty’s home with its clean surfaces and fancy art and expensive wine. I felt uncomfortable and I knew that this was it now – we were finally ready to speak. It was like the entire atmosphere had shifted to allow us to finally have this conversation. It was now or never. I swallowed and then, as if he knew what I was thinking, he spoke:

“I’ve missed you Georgie. I hope you know that. It fucking killed me when we stopped speaking,” he said it quietly, his voice soft.

“And yet, you allowed it to happen Matty,” I sighed. I felt like I had to speak around a block of emotion that had settled in my throat.

“I tried to call you that night you know, shortly after you left me in my hotel room. We could have just talked it through. We could have found some kind of way forward instead of these months, these years of radio silence,” I said, my heart aching as I remembered that night. _Fuck_ , it hurt.

He shook his head.

“You have to understand, I wasn’t in my right mind for a lot of this George. I’m not making excuses… okay fuck it, I kind of am, but I didn’t care about anything. I _couldn’t_ care about anything. All I cared about was staying numb because I physically couldn’t cope with what was happening,” he rushed in his usual frantic way and my heart sank.

“But why did you keep letting it happen – letting _us_ happen – if you didn’t fucking care Matty? I feel like you just strung me along until you got bored,” I said, frowning at how pathetic it sounded.

Our eyes met briefly and he looked away from me. He moved in a circle and I moved with him, maintaining the distance between us. His back was towards the large painting now and I was standing just in front of him. The painting framed his body – bursts of colours and words peeking out from behind him. We had that air of carefulness about us again. Our movements unnatural. Controlled. Thought-out.

“There was a pair of us in it Georgie,” he said and I found myself bristling at that.

“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice coming out a little harder than I intended.

“You never told me how you felt. I had no idea you had those kinds of feelings, actual _serious feelings_ , until that night on the balcony,” he said.

I laughed at that in disbelief.

“No idea? Matty, do you not remember – ” I stopped myself mid-sentence. I didn’t want to say the words “when we fucked” because it sounded crass saying it aloud in such a beautiful, clean house. As if our modern, immaculate surroundings would somehow make the phrase sound ugly. As if it would somehow take away from the depth of emotion that was always there “when we fucked.”

We were both silent and I knew that both of us were reliving those nights where I had given him everything. Those nights where all of this had gotten so fucked up.

I thought of everything that had transpired since that first night in the back of his van when we were kids. I thought of how much I had ached. How much I had cried. How many years of my life had been utterly laid to waste by this relentless pain.

And I was angry. I was so fucking angry. To think that all of this pain had been caused by someone _who didn’t even care_. Someone who wasn’t even aware, probably, of the impact that their careless actions had had on me.

“You broke my heart. You _broke_ my _fucking heart_ Matty and I just find it so… so fucking _selfish_ that you never told me how you really felt,” I said, my words laced with the anger and pain I felt.

He looked a bit stunned, but I had to say it. The words were finally coming:

“I wasted _years_ of my life pining over you. I could have been happy if you had just been honest with me from the start. If you had just been honest about how you felt. Fuck, I could be _married_ right now Matty, with kids! I could have moved on if I had of just known there was always ZERO hope with you. Instead you just led me on. Every single time. A kiss here, a fuck there. Do you have ANY fucking idea what you’ve done to me?”

My heart, which I had spent the past few years carefully trying to glue back together, was now splitting in my chest again. I was in agony. I started crying.

“You never _fucking_ told me,” I choked out.

“I never _told_ you? Are you fucking _kidding_ me George?” He said, his voice was rising.

“All I needed from you was something Matty, anything,” I matched his voice in terms of volume.

We were yelling at each other now.

“I have been telling you FOR YEARS George. Jesus fucking CHRIST. I couldn’t have been more explicit in my feelings for you!” He put his hand to his forehead. His eyes were shining with tears.

I frowned, not understanding what he meant.

“George, seriously,” He looked at me like I was a fucking idiot.

And then he stepped aside and the painting came back into view. I looked sadly at the mess of colours and words. My eyes ran over the lyrics, sentences I had heard thousands of times in my life, but as I read them in the here and now, I felt like I was seeing them for the very first time:

_So what about these feelings I’ve got?_

_I don’t want to be your friend, I want to kiss your neck._

_It’s just you and I tonight, why don’t you figure my heart out?_

My heart dropped inside my chest. And then a set of lyrics played inside my head in fucking stereo:

_Go down, soft sound…_

_Step into your skin? I’d rather jump in your bones._

_Taking up your mouth, so you breathe through your nose…_

A memory so fucking strong it felt like I was reliving it, like I was actually there: Matty crying in his van and me reaching out to him. The smell of summer trees in the deep night. Skin on skin. Feeling like if I didn’t touch him I’d stop breathing.

I started to shake as the realisation hit me violently. I needed to sit down. I felt like I was going to be sick.

I looked up at him, helpless and he just stood there staring at me, tears rolling down his own cheeks now. All these years. All these fucking years. He had been speaking to me directly through his music and I never heard him.

_I never fucking heard him._

“But… but why the fuck did you keep leaving me?” I was reeling. I wiped at my face. I couldn’t stop crying.

“Because I couldn’t handle the weight of my feelings so I tried to pretend they weren’t there. I tried to ignore them. I tried to fuck them away and numb them away and I got angry when they’d well up again every time we were together. You have to understand George… I was so fucking deep in denial. I didn’t even realise what those feelings were. And when I did? I was terrified I’d fuck up our friendship, fuck up the band. I couldn’t cope with how I felt and so I just numbed out. I pushed you away and that worked for a while, until it didn’t,” he said.

“But you chose her Matty,” I said, “I told you I loved you and you chose her.”

He swallowed at that and nodded.

“She had been with me when things were really, really bad Georgie. In my head, I guess I felt a certain loyalty. She was having it hard too… you don’t know the full story. There was a lot going on,” he said.

I felt like I was crumpling on the inside.

“But she knew. She always knew about you. Fuck… she was able to put it into words before I could. Why do you think she keyed my car?” he asked.

I was shaking. I suddenly couldn’t look at him. I looked around the room trying to process what the fuck he was saying to me.

He had loved me all this time. He had just been stupid and so… fucking Matty about it. Like I had been too, I suppose. Both of us had been struggling with our feelings for years. Both of us had been pining for each other yet too terrified to speak what we really felt because there was so much at stake – our friendship, the band… We had wasted so much time. I had cried so fucking much over a man who was also trying to numb his own broken heart, albeit in a more self-destructive way than me.

“George look at me, would you? Fuck,” he said then, his voice strained.

And I slowly looked at him. I started at his feet and I gradually moved my eyes up towards his face. He looked miserable. His eyes were red with tears, his face wet, his forehead creased with emotion.

“George say something, just… would you just please say something?” he said.

“What is there left to say?” I said and I meant it.

I closed the distance between us as quickly as I could and I kissed him.

Because I felt like I was going to die if I didn’t touch him.

Because the time for words was over.

Because there truly was nothing left to say.

******


	22. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And here we are at the end. I don't know what to say. Thank you all so much for sticking with this story and for always showing up with some truly lovely comments. It's honestly meant so much to me and I'm so glad I've found a place where the Gatty love is strong! Enjoy the ending <3.

**Chapter 17**

I had thought about this moment so many times. I had fantasised about it. In my head I had created an elaborate screenplay of what I would say, what I would do, but it all fell apart in the face of reality.

I was terrified. Even with Matty’s lips against mine again (finally, finally). Even with the weight of this new knowledge sitting in my skull (he had feelings for me too, finally, finally). I didn’t feel the ecstatic relief I always thought I would. I just felt terrified. My heart was racing, my blood was rushing in my ears but the kiss… _fuck._

The kiss consumed me. It took my breath away. It transported me somewhere else entirely. It lit that spark inside me that felt like the sun shining down on your face after an endless, depressing winter.

Matty became my entire fucking experience of life as I kissed him. I was losing myself in the kiss. In the feel of his tongue against my own. His lips against my own. His scent making me feel half mad, crazed, like I couldn’t stop touching him. That if I were to stop touching him I would spiral way into nothing.

I was reeling. Was this even real life? I wasn’t sure anymore.

Then the sound of something hitting the ground with a muted thud and both of his hands were wrapped in my hair. He had dropped his wine glass.

He deepened the kiss further, hands tugging on my hair gently and drawing a barely-there groan from me. My legs started to go weak. My brain was firing off sensations and emotions in a thousand different directions, my body being assaulted with euphoria, anxiety, lust, fear, joy… I was all over the place.

Eventually the need for air came between us and we reluctantly pulled apart. Matty looked dazed, his lips swollen and eyes half-hooded. Pupils blown. I could see his pulse jumping frantically in his neck. He looked divine.

He licked his lower lip slowly. Swallowed.

The blood in my body rushed south and I brought a shaking hand to my own lips, as if I had to make sure that the kiss had actually happened. That it hadn’t just been a figment of my imagination.

Silence fell. We both just looked at each other and then, at the same time, our eyes dropped to the floor. Both of our wine glasses were on the large, white rug we were standing on. I didn’t even remember letting mine go. Red wine was bleeding everywhere.

“Bollocks,” Matty said looking at the mess, although his voice lacked any real conviction to signify that he actually cared.

I slowly bent down, picked up the glasses and put them on the nearby coffee table. At least they hadn’t broken. The rug was a mess though. It was ruined.

“Your rug is fucked mate,” I said and the words sounded so ridiculous, so normal in the middle of everything that had just happened.

And then Matty started to laugh and some of my terror subsided. His laughter got louder and he threw his head back, allowing himself to laugh properly. He was so fucking beautiful. Always had been. Even now. Even with all that life experience on his face. Even with the hint of grey at his temples that shaving all his hair off couldn’t get rid of. Even still.

His smile lit up his face and I remembered him then, when we were younger. I could _see_ his younger self peeking through in that laugh. Fuck, I remembered all the times I had witnessed this laugh, that smile. All the times in my shitty car or his, driving around aimlessly, listening to tunes and Matty would turn to me, goofy grin, those large emo glasses he used to wear taking up half his face and he would laugh. And it would automatically bring a smile to my own face because it had always made me happy to see him happy.

I started laughing too. I couldn’t help it.

And then, when our laughter subsided he walked towards me and placed a hand on my cheek and kissed me again. Softly, deeply, tenderly, and I had that familiar drowning sensation that I always associated with him as my want for him grew inside me.

He pulled back, those dark eye searching mine and I saw the familiar permission being asked:

_Is this okay?_

I drew him into another kiss:

_Yes._

I allowed myself to fall into the sweet sensation of his mouth on mine. I allowed it to flood over me and black out the thoughts that were staring to surface in my brain such as, ‘Where do we go from here?’ and ‘Fuck, is this really a good idea?’ and ‘Hann is going to fucking murder me.’

The kiss became a tactile experience. His hands on my face, my mouth. His hands dropping to my neck, sending electric shivers through me. My own hands on his lower back. The feel of his skin as I slipped my fingers under his shirt and pulled him closer. He had filled out even more since the last time I had touched him. The skin of his stomach was smooth and toned.

I wanted him. I needed him. I needed to be closer to him in whatever way I could.

 _Step into your skin? I’d rather jump in your bones_.

Accurate.

I could feel him getting hard against me and I wanted him to know I felt the same. He gasped as I forcefully pushed my erection into his. I pulled his shirt up and he broke the kiss, letting me pull it off over his body as our movements picked up speed. He had gained a lot of muscle. I remembered him mentioning something about martial arts earlier in the day.

My hands caught sparks of desire as I ran them over his bare skin. I felt like he was the only solid thing in my experience. I physically couldn’t stop touching him.

He pushed me back gently for a brief second so he could tug the hem of my own shirt. I helped him pull it off over my head. He let it slip from his hands onto the rug.

 _Soft sound_.

And our lips were back together again. I was drunk on the feel of his bare skin against my own. Of the sensation of his breath against my neck as he kissed me.

He pulled back then and we looked at each other, close up.

Something beautiful moved in his eyes. The slight flush against his cheeks made my stomach dip deliciously and then the weight of tonight’s events gently landed on us. His pulse was still jumping in his neck. My heart was fluttering. My skin was humming under his touch.

We were going to sleep together. We both knew it. We both felt it in that way that only two people can ever really feel it.

You feel it before you speak it.

He cupped my cheek with his left hand, eyes not leaving mine, and he was the first to put it into words:

“Bedroom?”

I nodded.

He grabbed me by the hand and slowly, quietly, led me through his house, back up the stairs. His house was deceptively big – more rooms and small seating areas unfolded around me as I followed him. There were plants everywhere, hidden behind curved alcoves. I felt like I was in a minimalist jungle.

And then the master bedroom. It was surprisingly understated. I had a strong sense of contrast between the Matty I had known all my life and the Matty leading me into his bedroom now. The old Matty’s bedroom had been a mess of books, instruments and a bulging wardrobe. The new Matty led me into a room that looked like the suggestion of a bedroom more than an actual place where he slept.

The first thing I noticed as he dropped my hand was the fact that his bed was literally on the floor. It was just a mattress, draped in crisp, white bedclothes, sitting on the ground. A fancy-looking lamp was also on the ground beside it and it came into view when Matty switched it on. The room was bathed in a soft, low light. To our left, a small ensuite and in front of us, a sliding door that led out onto what appeared to be a balcony. A few books were scattered on a small bedside table and there was yet another plant nestled in the corner of the room by the window.

Matty stood in the centre of his bedroom watching me, his eyes smouldering in the half-light. He moved towards me and his hand found the top of my waist band. He pulled me towards him and my heart flipped at the subtle display of gentle force. At the ownership of it. He was much stronger than he looked and this excited me. I was starting to lose my head.

_Breathe George._

He brought his face towards mine and my breathing was heavy with anticipation as his forehead touched mine. His eyes were cast low. I was fucking _intoxicated_ by his beauty. The shadows on his face just made him look even more handsome, more beautiful. He was stunning.

“Before we do this,” his voice was almost a whisper, “I just want to be completely honest with you. I’m… I’m nervous.”

I blinked. I wasn’t expecting that.

“It’s… it’s been a long time since I did this with someone,” he bit on his bottom lip, eyes still looking at the floor.

And I would have thought he was joking if the expression on his face hadn’t been so serious. I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t expecting such upfront vulnerability from Matty so soon. The Matty I knew was all fake bravado and over-confidence. He would never, ever admit to feeling out of his depth. Hann’s words from a few weeks ago floated through my head: _“He’s changed a lot. He’s not the same person that he was back then… It’s hard to explain, but you’ll get what I mean if you meet him.”_

He was definitely different.

He looked up at me then, his eyes drawing me into him. He let me kiss him slowly. The truth was that I also hadn’t been with anyone in a long time. The last person I had slept with had been Lauren and all that had done was left my heart feeling empty and sad. The older I got, the more my heart had to be involved in the sex I had, which was proving to be an inconvenience but was also, apparently, a natural evolution according to Dr Will.

We pulled apart.

“Well… if it makes you feel any better, Ross says I’ve been married to my right hand this past year,” I said then, because it was the truth.

Matty laughed quietly.

“And did I ever feature in that relationship?” He asked then, breath hot against the side of my face as he moved towards my ear.

My eyes rolled back into my skull as he gently tugged on my ear lobe.

“For someone who is nervous you have a really odd way of showing it. _Fuuuckk,_ ” I groaned.

He started kissing his way down my neck and then his hand dropped to my jeans. I felt excitement race through me as he started rubbing me through my jeans. The friction made me dizzy.

“Matty, please… fuck. I need you,” I said, my voice strained and he kissed his way back up to my mouth.

“Then take me,” he said, lips pressing firmly against mine once more. He licked into my mouth and I wrapped my arms around him, pressing him against me.

He didn’t have to tell me twice.

I walked him towards the bed and manoeuvred him down onto the mattress, sliding off his shoes and socks as he lay there. Then I unbuttoned his jeans and slowly slipped them down off his hips, followed by his boxers until he was completely naked. I burned the sight of him into my memory because there had been a time when I was certain I would never get to experience this again. My eyes roamed over his body as I undressed myself quickly. I committed the hard angles of his hips to my brain – the freckles on his skin, the sloping hollows beneath his collar bones, the delicious toned muscles of his stomach, the tattoos. All of it stored inside me so I would never, ever forget him.

He reached out to me as I climbed onto the mattress and he pulled me down on top of him, our bodies connecting. Chests pressed together as I kissed him again, the beautiful, maddening pressure of his hard cock grazing against my lower stomach drove me crazy. We both moaned as he repositioned his hips and rubbed himself against me properly. I felt like I was about to die and I found it funny how I had died with Matty so many times over the years. How each time with him felt like a complete reformatting of who I was as a person. It was always a rebirth. And I would wake up tomorrow morning different again and he would have left another mark on my soul so fucking deeply and, once more, I would be forever changed by him.

His hand found my cock and I shuddered into his touch as he stroked me. I was already starting to come undone and I knew that I was way too excited for this. I wouldn’t be able to last long, not with the way he looked tonight – eyes burning, lips parted, mouth soft, tongue wet. He was exquisite and I loved the way his eyes widened slightly every time he made me moan or drew a gasp from me with his touch. He was getting off on my pleasure, which in turn was getting me off too. My cock was already starting to leak.

“You...” I swallowed hard as his fingers pulled against my aching erection again, “You are turning me on way too much and way too fast,” I said and Matty smirked, but he understood my dilemma. He removed his touch and lay back down on the bed.

I didn’t waste any time. I immediately started to kiss my way down his toned body, loving the feel of his hot skin beneath my mouth and then I took his cock between my lips and I couldn’t stop the moan that came from me as I felt him filling up my mouth. I looked up at him as his hand gently brushed through my hair. He was watching me, his lower lip bitten between his teeth again, the flush on his cheeks deepening.

“You are so fucking good at that,” he breathed as I started to work him with my tongue. A part of me adored the praise.

“Jesus Christ George, fuck, oh my god,” he moaned, the mattress shaking as he lay back down.

I moved my fingers so I could slowly start circling his ass, the whisper of my touch causing him to spill a host of profanities from his mouth. I remembered that night in the hotel room, when I had heard him fucking through the wall and how he had spoken. I wanted him to talk to me like that.

And then a bolt of desire ran through my body like an electrical current.

I let him fall from my mouth and I stopped my movements as I considered it. My body responded with a very significant: _Yes. This is what I want._

“I want to be with you,” I said aloud.

“You are with me?” Matty said, confused, his breathing heavy.

He propped himself back up onto his elbows so he could look at me.

“No… I mean… I…” I was struggling to articulate myself so I decided to let my body speak instead.

Matty raised his eyebrows when he saw the look on my face:

_I want you inside me._

“You are going to be the absolute fucking death of me, do you know that?” He said, pushing himself up into a seated position so he could grab my face with his hands and kiss me passionately.

“Have you ever…?” He asked as we pulled apart.

I suddenly felt nervous. Aside from one adventurous woman a few years ago, the most I had ever experienced in that part of my body was a tongue.

“No,” I said, my cheeks reddening slightly.

Matty smiled at me and then kissed me again.

“I’ll take care of you,” he said, “lay down.”

I did as he asked and watched him as he discreetly opened the draw on his bedside table and took out a small bottle of lube.

“Just relax. Just focus on the sensations. The more turned on you are, the better,” he said quietly.

I closed my eyes, my breath shaky as I felt his lips on my lower stomach, his hands trailing over my thighs, gently parting them so he could position himself properly between my legs. His touch left shivers running all over my body. And then his breath against my aching cock and then the heat and incredible sensation of his hot, wet mouth encircling me.

“Fucking _hell_ ,” I breathed.

Matty’s mouth was pure heaven and he was relentless in his desire to pleasure me with his tongue. My eyes snapped open as he deep-throated me without warning and I moaned his name as I felt the contraction of his throat, loving the way his name sounded on my lips.

He came up for air and kissed my stomach again.

“Just focus on the sensations. You’re doing so well baby,” he whispered.

 _Baby_. The word made something inside me shiver.

I heard the noise of the tube being opened and then he put his mouth on me again. Pleasure slid through the base of my stomach and sparked up through me like a flare. And then, his slick finger against my ass. I took a deep breath, focusing all my attention on what his mouth was doing to me as he slowly pressed his finger inside me and it felt… different. But good. Definitely good.

“Just relax baby,” Matty murmured as he replaced his mouth with his other hand.

He pulled on my cock slowly, tantalisingly, while his finger started to slide in and out of me slowly. I quickly adapted to the sensation. It felt so satisfying feeling him in this new way. Pleasure rippled through me.

I gasped as his tongue flicked across the tip of my erection and I looked down at him just in time to see him licking a large blob of precum off me.

“Matty, please,” I moaned, not sure what I was even asking him for but he knew. He always knew what I needed. He always knew me better than I knew myself.

I shuddered as he slowly slid another finger inside me, making me cry out. It hurt this time.

“Are you okay?” I could hear the concern in his voice.

I took another deep breath and nodded.

“It gets much better love, I promise,” he said and started stroking my cock again, which helped and the more I breathed into the sensation of his fingers, the more I relaxed and the more I started to enjoy the sensation of being filled by him.

 _Being filled by him._ The thought made my stomach tighten with pleasure. I groaned.

He continued to work my body until I was practically writhing around on the mattress. I was almost in pain. I need to cum.

“I-I need you,” I finally managed to put what I was feeling into words.

I looked down at Matty between my legs and my expression must have said it all because he didn’t ask any questions. He just gently removed his fingers, making me wince, and then got up on his knees and squirted some more lube into his hand. He started slicking up his cock. The sight of him touching himself made me weak. I dropped my hand and squeezed myself. I was so ready to cum. I was barely managing to hold it together. My body was so overstimulated.

I still couldn’t believe that this was happening to me, that I was actually here in Matty’s bed.

I traced back the events of the day. I honestly didn’t think it would end like this. I remembered how nervous I had been, how hurt, how angry, how fucking good it felt to just be around him again, how much I had missed his laugh and his smile. How much my heart ached for him. How much it still did.

“If this is too much for you, please just tell me,” he said, gently repositioning my legs and lining himself up against me.

I came back to the present moment with his touch. I was crazed with want for him. I could feel the head of his cock sliding against me.

“Please, I want it, please, give it to me, please…”

And then he pushed his hips forward and both of us moaned loudly – Matty from sheer pleasure, me from the mixture of pain and arousal at the thoughts of him being inside me.

“Fuck George, _oh my god…_ ” Matty’s voice broke slightly and I had to remind myself to keep breathing as I felt him stretching me, filling me completely.

It was painful but so fucking erotic at the same time. I felt like I was having an out of body experience.

“You’re so _fucking_ tight,” Matty moaned.

He gripped my hips with a surprising strength that immediately sent shivers through me and his voice alone was enough to make the experience worthwhile for me, even with the pain. It turned me on so much knowing that I was giving him this pleasure.

He pushed into me until he couldn’t move any further and then stopped, allowing me to adjust to the feeling of him.

My heart was slamming in my chest. All of my senses felt like they had been turned up to eleven. Matty looked divine – his eyes closed, his mouth hanging open, he was utterly lost in the feeling of my body. I had never wanted anyone, would never want anyone, as much as I wanted him. I realised that I would still do anything for him. I would still follow him anywhere.

“Please,” I said the word softly and his eyes flickered open, meeting mine.

_You sure?_

_Fuck me. Please. Fuck. Me._

His eyes flashed and he slowly pulled his hips back, the sensation inside me making me gasp and then he slowly pressed himself forward, filling me back up. He repeated the motion a few times, his grip tightening on my hips with every forward press of his hips. He was holding himself back. I could see the effort on his face.

“Harder,” I said then, surprising myself, “please.”

He looked at me warily, but I said the word again: “Harder.”

And Matty pulled back faster and pushed his hips forward and as he did so, he hit something inside me that caused my brain to explode.

“Oh fuck!” I yelped and Matty moaned in response and hit that spot again.

My body responded to him in a way that I had never experienced before in my life.

“Does that feel good baby?” His asked, his voice flowing over me like liquid velvet.

I couldn’t respond to him. I couldn’t speak.

He kept pushing himself into me, my moans encouraging him. He picked up speed. All I could hear was our ragged breathing and the squeak of his mattress as he thrust himself forward. Matty fucked hard, like his life depended on killing me with as much pleasure as I could take. He was relentless. Obsessive. It was fucking incredible. I felt so good I was almost crying.

His rhythm started to falter slightly and get sloppy the more we fucked as he got lost in the sensation. He fell forwards on top of me and lifted my hips up to him. I wanted him deeper. I wanted him so far inside me I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.

“That’s it, come for me baby,” he panted, still slamming into me, and the memory of the hotel room bloomed in my head again.

“Yes, fuck, let go for me. Come on baby, fuck, you feel so fucking good.”

His words washed over me and all I could feel was the sweet kiss of his hips against me as he slammed into me over and over again. I could see the glimmering edge of my orgasm just up ahead.

“Fuck, fuck,” I gasped. I felt like I was about to die.

Matty’s face was buried in my neck.

I was gasping for air and then my orgasm hit me so hard it was almost painful. I left my body for a split second. And then I felt Matty’s pace shudder as he buried himself as deeply into me as he could and then the blissful warmth of him as he spilled himself inside me.

He collapsed onto me, physically unable to support himself any longer.

My heart was hammering in my chest. I couldn’t feel my body. My cum was all over both of us and there were so many unspoken words still lingering between us. But in that moment, all that mattered was what had just taken place.

His house was still and quiet, a sanctuary, as we came back to our senses. He moved himself so he could kiss me deeply as he slid out of me.

“That was…” he started and then shook his head, sinking back down onto my chest.

I held him, ignoring the fact that we were destroying his bed with bodily fluids. I felt so fucking _satisfied_. I felt like I was glowing – lit up from the inside out.

“If I had known that this was the way to shut you up, I honestly would have done this years ago,” I said and he laughed, swatting at me with his hand.

I grabbed his wrist and kissed him again.

“I am knackered,” he said, closing his eyes and it wasn’t long before his breathing started to get heavier and I realised that he had drifted off to sleep.

I didn’t want to wake him.

Instead, I lay in his bed and while my body was satisfied, my mind wasn’t. Doubt started to creep back in. Anxiety started to rise up in my chest, along with that annoying question we would inevitably have to answer: What now?

I inhaled the scent of his hair.

_So what about these feelings I’ve got?_

What indeed.

I didn’t know much, but what I did know was that my heart still wanted Matty. My heart would always want Matty, but I also couldn’t dismiss the pain or the damage that had been done either. I was so fucking confused, and I know that having sex definitely didn’t help things. I felt a sinking feeling inside me.

The soft light of the bedroom made everything feel hazy, warm and gave the illusion of safety. My mind was heavy, but eventually, listening to the steady rhythm of Matty’s breath, I managed to fall into a deep sleep.

I woke up the next morning to a familiar feeling: abject terror.

I knew that Matty was gone before I opened my eyes. It was like my body could feel the absence of him. I sat bolt upright, feeling as though my biggest nightmare was about to repeat itself. I looked up and then caught sight of him.

He was sitting on the balcony, topless, a pair of grey joggers slung low on his hips and my jacket over his shoulders. He was reading a book and smoking a fag. The diluted, early morning light seemed to illuminate him, like he was surrounded by some kind of divine halo. Mayhem was lying happily at his feet, fast asleep. My heart swelled and I wasn’t prepared for the wave of emotion that welled up inside me.

I sat watching him. The way he tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette every few minutes. The way his bare foot would occasionally run over Mayhem’s fur absent-mindedly. The way he would pause every so often, as if he needed to think about what he had just read. He was beautiful. Time seemed to stand still as I watched him and I had the vague feeling that this was one of those rare moments in life – the moments that exist outside of time. The moments that happen before and after significant life events. The moments in-between where things are just right. Where things are just perfect.

I sat watching him a little while longer and then the moment passed, and with it the knowledge came that it was gone and I would never have it again. My heart ached.

It was time.

I slowly got out of bed and wrapped one of the cleaner bedsheets around me.

Matty was here. Matty had stayed. Granted, it was Matty’s house but he had stayed. After so many years, he had finally stayed.

He looked up as I walked out onto the balcony and he smiled at me. I smiled back. He took another drag from his cigarette and then handed it to me. I was aware that my hand was shaking slightly as I took it from him. I was nervous.

“We should probably talk about what happened last night,” Matty said then and I nodded.

Silence stretched between us and I tried to figure out what to say.

“I still feel like there’s a lot of stuff I need to say to you,” I said then, opting for honesty again because it had brought me this far with him.

Matty’s beautiful smile faltered slightly at that. He brought a hand up to his head and sighed.

“Can’t we just let the past be the past Georgie? What use is there reliving it? Last night was… incredible. Can’t we just draw a line under everything and start over from last night?” He asked.

And then he added, voice quiet: “Can’t we just allow ourselves to be happy for once?”

I sighed. The sinking feeling returned.

“I can’t just pretend that none of it happened Matty,” I said.

Another silence stretched between us. I frowned. My head started to throb. I was sad and confused.

“So where do we go from here?” He asked then.

He looked at me. His eyes were shining. I remembered the night on the balcony. Emotion clawed at my words as I said: “I don’t know.”

I took another drag from the cigarette and then handed it back to him. His fingers grazed mine as he took it and I could read the language of his body as he looked at me:

_Please George._

I had to look away. I felt like I was drowning again.

I cast my eyes over the horizon. London lay out before us. Buildings peaked on the skyline. Everything was bathed in the watery morning light. The chilly air nipped at my bare skin. My heart felt like it was caught in a vice grip.

So where do we go from here? I didn’t fucking know. How do you move on when there’s so much history at play? How do you take a shared history and transform it into possibility? How do you transform the pain into something that can sustain new life?

I had no fucking idea and my sadness hit me like a tidal wave along with one of those rare moments of acute clarity: I was so fucking tired of hurting. I was so, so tired.

I tilted my face towards the early morning sky.

There was a sliver of a crescent moon fading fast above us, and then there, just beside it, something so small I had to blink a few times to make sure that I had seen it and that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.

“Can you see that?” I said, pointing at the sky.

Matty looked up sadly.

“You know I’m near-sighted,” he said, squinting.

Silence for a few seconds.

“It looks like a star,” he said then.

“It is,” I said.

For the first time in years I had seen a star in the city sky. And for the first time in years, I felt it – the subtle, barely-there flicker in my chest. Hope.

I decided in that moment, on the balcony with Matty, that I would embrace it because life is too short. Because I had spent so many years of my life so deep in my own grief. And because I was tired. I was so fucking exhausted of carrying my pain.

I couldn’t carry it any longer.

I would take that small flicker of hope and I would run with it.

I would fucking run with it.

**The End.**


End file.
